Week 6 - Mirroring

 

Week 6 - Mirroring

What Have I Learned This Week?

Gimbal - When manipulating an object (Scaling, rotating etc) a controller icon is created known as the Gimbal. The size of the Gimbal can be adjusted with the + and - Keys. One important use of the Gimbal is its location, which can affect a rotations pivot, as well as, pairing with the snapping tool to snap a model to a specific Vertices or Edge. The Gimbal can be moved using the D key. The Location can be reset in Modify > Centre Pivot.

Snapping Tool - Snapping is used with the Gimbal to snap it to a certain location as well as allowing very specific movement within the different movement tools. Holding the J key with the rotation tool will allow the object to 'Snap' to specific increments of rotation which is useful for achieving 90 degrees or 45-degree rotations. Grid snapping can be achieved by holding down X as well as Curve snapping with C and Point snapping with V. 

Copy and Duplicate - Used to create two or more of a model, holding Ctrl + C to copy then using Ctrl + D to duplicate. It's more preferable to duplicate rather than paste as a duplicate doesn't group the duplicates in the outliner of Maya. 

Duplicate Special - A duplicate special is a tool that can be used as an alternative to mirror, allowing real-time duplication. Duplicate special can also be used to duplicate an abject about a pivot (Snapping Tool) to create a chain of duplicates. The tool allows Duplication within all 3 axes as well as their scale, rotation and positioning. When using Duplicate special, the Vertices will not be meshed automatically and must be done manually to ensure any mirroring combines the meshes. 

Mirror - Allows the creation of duplicate of a mesh, reflecting within the X,Y, Z planes. The Duplicate can also be manipulated manually with the Gimbal to change the outcome. Mirror offers extra tools such as cut geometry which will decide whether or not to remove any faces that break the cut. Adjusting the axis will determine which plane the mirror will be created in as well as the Directional tool to determine the reflection in the + or - side of the plane. 

To test these tools, we were given the task to create a symmetrical shield from a reference image. 






The metal outline of the shield was created using the duplicate special tool, where I only modelled 1/8th of the shape and create a chain of duplicates around a centre pivot. Because I was very pressed for time this week I did not create the entire shield from a single polygon and created floating polygons for the cylinder of the shield as well as the metal bumps on the rim. This would need to be improved on for next time, however, I was able to keep a very clean edge flow. Also, I experimented with the Loft Tool for the Shield's handle by using 3 drawn lines for its curved shape. The handle did have its desired outcome however the mirror tool was needed as one half didn't have the desired outcome due to my lack of experience with the tool. 

For the second task to create a symmetrical object of my choice, I decided to make a quick and simple butterfly model. The model was kept very simplistic due to my lack of time during the week, but I was able to achieve a very clean wireframe as well as a perfect mirror and a correct overall shape from the reference. One issue I had was texturing as my Butterfly Wing texture image was not showing up on the model even after UV wrapping the wing shape. In the future, I will revisit the UV wrapping week to relearn custom textures to solve this reoccurring issue.



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