GET MORE FROM MAYA’S MODELLING TOOLS

Antony Ward puts Maya’s updated modelling tools to the test

Maya used to be the last application I would use for modelling. If you’ve followed me and my work, you will know by now that I used to be a huge Silo fan, and still am if I’m honest.

The truth is, building anything in Maya used to be a laboured experience. Rather than being a fluid workflow, you would end up menu hopping. Working was more like clunk, clunk, clunk than a seamless and enjoyable process.

Thankfully, the past few years have seen Autodesk start to address this issue, and with each new release, the modelling tools have been dramatically improved, to the point where I now model in Maya almost exclusively. In addition to this, all the key tools can now be found in the marking menus, meaning you can access them quickly and easily, speeding up the time it takes to create.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still issues – annoying things that should have been obvious to fix. For example, the symmetry system was something which felt half implemented, with some tools not recognising when symmetrical modelling was enabled, and others just not working as expected.

Recently, Autodesk released Maya 2016 Extension 2 and after that Maya 2017. These releases brought a whole host of new modelling fixes and enhancements. Most of these were suggested through a ‘small annoying things’ campaign where users submitted ideas and suggestions on what to include in the newest releases.

So, with this tutorial I want to put these tools to the test and build a steampunk-inspired character portrait – from scratch – to see just how well they hold up. Would the experience be as seamless and fluid as I had hoped? Let’s find out! For all the assets you need go to www.bit.ly/vault-213-realtime