3D modelling and animation using Autodesk maya.

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A Study Report
On
“3D Modeling and Animation using Autodesk Maya”
Submitted by
Parvesh Taneja
Under Guidance of
Mr. Nihar Ranjan Roy
G D Goenka University
SOHNA GURGAON ROAD, HARYANA INDIA

2. CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that the Project entitled “3D Modeling and
Animation using Autodesk Maya” which is being submitted
by-
S. No. Name Enrolment Number
1. Parvesh Taneja 130020201057
is a bonafide work done under my guidance & supervision.
Mr.Nihar Ranjan Roy
(Associate Professor)

3. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude and deep
regards to my guide Mr. Nihar Ranjan Roy for his exemplary guidance,
monitoring and constant encouragement throughout the course of this thesis.
I am obliged to staff members of GDGU especially Mr. Dheeraj Nagpal & Mr.
Smruti Ranjan for the valuable information provided by them in their respective
fields. I am grateful for their cooperation during the period of my assignment.

4. PREFACE
The aim of our project is to make “3D Model and Animation it using Autodesk
Maya”. This report provides a brief insight into the world of 3-D modeling and
animation using Autodesk Maya. I have made several objects (3-D models) in
Autodesk Maya which are in mentioned in detail in this report.

5. CONTENTS
1. Chapter I
Introduction to 3-D Modelling.
2. Chapter II
Types of 3-D Modelling.
3. Chapter III
Introduction to Animation.
4. Chapter IV
Types of Animation.
5. Chapter V
Introduction to Autodesk Maya.
6. Chapter VI
Making of Soda Can.
REFERENCES

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CHAPTER-I

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Introduction to 3D Modeling
Modeling is the process of taking a shape and moulding it into a completed 3D mesh. The most
typical means of creating a 3D model is to take a simple object, called a primitive, and extend
or "grow" it into a shape that can be refined and detailed. Primitives can be anything from a
single point (called a vertex), a two-dimensional line (an edge), a curve (a spline), to three
dimensional objects (faces or polygons).
In the world of computer design, 3D modeling is the process of developing graphics and images
that appear to have three dimensions. The process is complicated, but generally involves
connecting a set of points with various geometric data such as lines and curved surfaces with
the goal of creating a wireframe model that represents a three-dimensional object.
It is popular in gaming, motion pictures, and other entertainment ventures.
Designers typically use one of four1 main modeling methods, namely-
 Polygonal
 Primitive,
 Non-Uniform rational B-spline, or splines
 Patches.
Choosing one method over another is usually a matter of end goals as well as software
capabilities.

This is just for the sake of information.

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Representation of 3-D Models
Almost all 3D models can be divided into two categories.
Solid - These models define the volume of the object they represent (like a rock). These are
more realistic, but more difficult to build. Solid models are mostly used for nonvisual
simulations such as medical and engineering simulations, for CAD and specialized visual
applications such as ray tracing and constructive solid geometry.
Shell/boundary - These models represent the surface, e.g. the boundary of the object, not its
volume (like an infinitesimally thin eggshell). These are easier to work with than solid models.
Almost all visual models used in games and film are shell models.

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CHAPTER-II
Types to 3D Modelling

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Types to 3D Modelling
1. Spline or patch modelling:
A spline is a curve in 3D space defined by at least two control points. The most
common splines used in 3D art are bezier curves and NURBS (the software Maya
has a strong NURBS modeling foundation.) Using splines to create a model is
perhaps the oldest, most traditional form of 3D modeling available. A cage of
splines is created to form a "skeleton" of the object you want to create. The
software can then create a patch of polygons to extend between two splines,
forming a 3D skin around the shape. Spline modeling is not used very often these
days for character creation, due to how long it takes to create good models. The
models that are produced usually aren't useful for animation without a lot of
modification.
Spline modeling is used primarily for the creation of hard objects, like cars,
buildings, and furniture. Splines are extremely useful when creating these objects,
which may be a combination of angular and curved shapes. When creating a 3D
scene that requires curved shapes, spline modeling should be your first choice.
Fig 2.1 Spline Modelling
Fig 2.2 Patch Modelling

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2. Box modelling:
Box modeling is possibly the most popular technique, and bears a lot of
resemblance to traditional sculpting. In box modelling, one starts with a primitive
(usually a cube) and begins adding detail by "slicing" the cube into pieces and
extending faces of the cube to gradually create the form you're after. People use
box modeling to create the basic shape of the model. Once practiced, the
technique is very quick to get acceptable results. The downside is that the
technique requires a lot of tweaking of the model along the way. Also, it is
difficult to create a model that has a surface topology that lends well to animation.
Box modeling is useful as a way to create organic models, like characters. Box
modellers can also create hard objects like buildings, however precise curved
shapes may be more difficult to create using this technique.
Fig 2.3 Box Modelling
3. Poly modeling/ edge extrusion:
While it's not the easiest to get started with, poly modeling is perhaps the most
effective and precise technique. In poly modelling, one creates a 3D mesh point-
by-point, face-by-face. Often one will start out with a single quad (a 3D object
consisting of 4 points) and extrude an edge of the quad, creating a second quad
attached to the first. The 3D model is created gradually in this way. While poly
modeling is not as fast as box modelling, it requires less tweaking of the mesh to
get it "just right," and you can plan out the topology for animation ahead of time.
Poly modelers use the technique to create either organic or hard objects, though
poly modeling is best suited for organic models.

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CHAPTER-III
Introduction to Animation

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Introduction to Animation
Animation is the process of displaying still images in a rapid sequence of static
images that minimally differ from each other to create the illusion of movement.
These images can be hand drawn, computer generated, or pictures of 3D objects.
Though most people associate animation with cartoons, it also has applications
in industrial and scientific research. Regardless of the type, the viewer's body
plays a main role in why people see continuous movement instead of a series of
quickly changing images.
The illusion as in motion pictures in general is thought to rely on the phi
phenomenon
. Animators are artists who specialize in the creation of animation.
Animation can be recorded with either analogue media, a flip book, motion
picture film, video tape, digital media, including formats with animated
GIF, Flash animation and digital video. To display animation, a digital camera,
computer, or projector are used along with new technologies that are produced.

The phi phenomenon is the optical illusion of perceiving a series of still images, when viewed in rapid
succession, as continuous motion.

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CHAPTER-IV
Types of Animation

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Types of Animation
1. Traditional animation or Classical 2D animation
Traditional animation involved animators drawing by hand for each and every
frame. If you love the feel of pencils on a paper, then the traditional approach is
very fascinating. Traditional animation is creating the drawings one by one on the
frame. 2D animation involves creating numerous drawings then feeding into a
plastic cells, hand painting them and create the animated sequence on a painted
background image.
Traditional Aniamtion Movies : Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan,
Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin.
Fig 4.1 A man Making drawing
Fig 4.2 Character made by hand drawing

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2. Digital 2D animation
Creating animations in the 2 dimensional space with the help of digital
technologies is known as digital 2d animation. You don’t need to create digital
models, you just need to draw the frames. Create 100s of drawing and
animating them to show some kind of movement is technically known as digital
2d animation. Using Adobe flash, animators can limit the number of drawings
used, which makes them easier to create digital 2d animation. Small variations
like changing the color or frame rate can be changed almost instantly, thus
making it easier for the animators to work on.
Fig 4.3 Character made by digital animation
Fig 4.4 Character made by digital animation using software

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3. Digital 3D animation
If you are interested in making the unreal characters into a realistic one, then it’s
Digital 3d animation. Digital 3d animation characters are much faster to create
and they are quite popular in the movie making industry. Using a computer
software 3d animated images are used to create many short films, full length
movies and even TV commercials and a career in digital 3d animation is highly
rewarding. Comparing to 2D animation and the traditional approach, 3d
animation models are highly realistic.
Fig 4.5 Character made by digital 3D animation

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4. Stop-motion animation
Have you ever wondered if a piece of stone can walk or talk, well anything is
possible in animation? Using frame by frame animation, physical static objects
are moved around and during the post-production it is shown in a fluid
movement. Stop motion animation has been around ever since the evolution of
puppets. There were many movies created using the stop motion method, some
of the finest examples are “Fun in a bakery shop” created in 1902.Edwin Porter
directed "The Teddy Bears," which was one of the earliest stop-motion
animation films. The movie is a short sequence of playing teddy bears, just over
a minute in length, which took over 50 hours to animate.
Fig 4.6 Character made for stop motion animation

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5. Puppetry Animation
Puppetry animation is created using the life like puppets instead of objects. The
film ‘The Humpty Dumpty Circus’ (1908) created by J. Stuart Blackton and
Albert smith receives credit as the first stop-motion animation film that features
puppets. Nowadays puppet animation is most commonly used in children’s
cartoons and films. An example of puppet animation used in cinema is in the film
King Kong (1933).The Nightmare before Christmas (1993) is an American stop
motion musical fantasy horror film directed by Henry Selick. It used 227 puppets
to represent the characters in the film and also 400 heads were used to allow the
expression for every possible emotion.
Fig 4.7 Character made for puppetry animation

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6. Clay animation or Claymation
If you like to play with clay then this is of the best forms of stop motion created
in Claymation. In this Claymation, pieces of clay are moulded to create characters
and based on the imagination of the animator, a story is unfolded. There are oil
based and water based clays available. Sometimes the clay is moulded into free
forms or filled up in a wire like structure called armature. The animated characters
are kept in a set and with only short movements, the whole scene is film.
Fig 4.8 Character made for clay animation / Claymation

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7. Cut-out animation
Cut – Out animation is probably one of the oldest forms of stop motion animations
in the history of animation. The first cut-out animation was created by Lotte
Reiniger in 1926 and it was named “The Adventures of Prince Achmed”. She
used quite detailed paper silhouettes to convey a beautiful story. In this method
paper cut outs are moved under the camera lens to say a story. Ever since the
evolution of computers, it was much easier to introduce the computerized cut
images in a queue.
Fig 4.9 Character made for cut-out animation

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8. Zoetrope Animation
The zoetrope is one of several animation toys which were invented in the 19th
century, as people experimented with ways to make moving pictures. It was
invented in 1834 by William George Horner, and is one of the early forms of
animations. Some still images are drawn on a drum and when turned in a circular
way, you have an illusion of movement. The visual effect created by a zoetrope
is still used today to create animated GIFs.
Fig 4.10 Zoetrope animation

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CHAPTER-V
Introduction to Autodesk Maya

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Introduction to Autodesk Maya
Maya is 3D computer animation software with powerful modelling, rendering,
simulation, texturing and animation tools for vfx artists, modellers and
animators. Maya helps artists tell their story with one fast, creative toolset
Maya is the premier application for creating compelling 3D digital content,
including models, animation, visual effects, games, and simulations.
The work you do in Maya generally falls into these categories:
Creating models. Polygons, NURBS, and subdivision surfaces are different
object types with different ways of modeling. Each has its own strengths, and
different artists prefer working with different types.
 Polygons let you model a surface by building up and reshaping a number
of simple surface facets.
 NURBS let you easily create smooth, curving surfaces with high-level
control.
 Subdivision surfaces let you edit surfaces at a high level with minimum
overhead data, while still letting you work with subsections of the surface
as if they were made from polygons.
 Character rigging. Most animations involve “characters,” articulated
models such as a person, an animal, robot, or anything else that moves by
articulation. Maya lets you define internal skeletons for characters and bind
skin to them to create realistic movement with deformation.
 Animation. Just about everything you can think of in Maya is key able or
able to be animated.
 Dynamics, fluids, and other simulated effects. Maya includes a
comprehensive suite of tools for simulating real world effects such as fire
explosions, fluids, hair and fur, the physics of colliding objects, and more.
 Painting and paint effects. Maya includes an incredible system for using a
graphics tablet (or the mouse) to paint 2D canvases, paint directly on 3D
models, paint to create geometry, scriptable paint, and virtually limitless
other possibilities.

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 Lighting, Shading, and Rendering. When you want to render a still image
or movie of your scene or animation, you can create them using your
choice of renderers.

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System requirements for Autodesk
Maya 2015
The Table below shows all the requirement for Autodesk Maya2015 -
Software
Operating
System
 Microsoft® Windows® 7 (SP1), Windows® 8 and Windows® 8.1
Professional operating system
 Apple® Mac OS® X 10.8.5 and 10.9.x operating system
 Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 6.2 WS operating system
 Fedora™ 14 Linux operating system
 CentOS 6.2 Linux operating system
Browser
Autodesk recommends the latest version of the following web browsers for
access to online supplemental content:
 Apple® Safari® web browser
 Google Chrome™ web browser
 Microsoft® Internet Explorer® web browser
 Mozilla® Firefox® web browser
Hardware
CPU 64-bit Intel® or AMD® multi-core processor
RAM 4 GB of RAM (8GB recommended)
Disk Space 4GB of free disk space for install
Pointing Device Three-button mouse

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CHAPTER-VI
Making a 3-D model of Soda-Can in
Autodesk Maya
Fig 6.1 Soda Can

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Making a 3-D model of Soda-Can
Step by Step
Step 1:
1. Go to Create
2. Select Polygon Primitive
3. Select Cylinder
Fig 6.2
Step 2:
Press R to scale and scale accordingly by grabbing handles (Blue, Red & Green as shown in
figure below).
Fig 6.3

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Step 3:
Go to Edit Mesh option and click Insert Edge Loop Tool and insert edges appropriately.
Fig 6.4
After Inserting Edge Loops, it will look as shown in figure below.
Fig 6.5

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Step 4:
Again Press R and scale some of the edges to make it look like a soda can.
Fig 6.6
Step 5:
Press W to grab the edge loop and further shape the model.
Fig 6.7

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Step 6:
Insert more Edge Loops by clicking G.
Fig 6.8
After inserting more edge loops it will look like as shown below.
Fig 6.9

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Step 7:
Press R and grab the top are and shape it.
Fig 6.10
Do same with bottom of the cylinder (press W key to move edge loops).
Fig 6.11

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Step 8:
Right- click a polygon mesh and select Face from the marking menu.
Fig 6.12
Step 9:
Go to Edit Mesh option and click Extrude (Make sure the top surface is selected).
Fig 6.13

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Step 10:
Press R to scale, then press G to extrude and scale at same time.
Fig 6.14
Step 11:
Go to Rendering Editors and select Hypershade.
Fig 6.15

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Step 12:
Select Blinn and close the window.
Fig 6.16
Step 13:
Go to Common Material Attributes in Attribute Editor and increase or decrease the values of
different properties according to your desired colour.
Fig 6.17

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Various Options (Zoomed view of Fig 6.17) in Common Material Attributes.
Fig 6.18
Step 14:
Select the top area as done in step 8, Press Shift and ‘.’(Full Stop Key) simultaneously.
Fig 6.19

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Step 15:
Now go to Assign Existing Material and select blinn1.
Fig 6.20
Step 16:
Do same as in previous step to the bottom of the can.
Fig 6.21

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Step 17:
Again go to Rendering Editors and select Hypershade.
Fig 6.22
Step 18:
Select Blinn again.
Fig 6.23

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Step 19:
Go to Common Material Attributes and Specular Shading in Attribute Editor and increase or
decrease the values of different properties according to your desired colour.
Fig 6.24
Step 20:
Click on color a new window pops up.
Fig 6.25

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Step 21:
Select File (new window pops up).
Fig 6.26
Step 22:
Click on the folder in front Image Name and select the file.
Fig 6.27

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Step 23:
An Open window pops up now select the image file you want to apply (Here I have selected
the Logo).
Close the window now.
Fig 6.28
Step 24:
Select the Faces where you want to apply the image.
Fig 6.29

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Step 25:
Click Assign Existing Material and select blinn2.
Fig 6.30
After doing this it will look like as show in the figure below (Your might look different
depending on the values you selected previously in Attribute Editor).
Fig 6.31

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Step 26:
Click numeric key 6
Fig 6.32
Step 27:
Now click on Create UVs and select Cylindrical Mapping.
Fig 6.33

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Step 28:
Modelling of soda can is now finished, save the file by simply going to File menu and
clicking save.
Fig 6.34

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REFERENCE
1. http://www.animationarena.com/introduction-to-3d-modelling.html
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi_phenomenon
4. http://webneel.com/different-types-of-animation-styles
5. http://www.expertrating.com/courseware/MAYACourse/Maya-Transforms-1.asp
6. http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/learning-autodesk-maya-a-beginners-introduction-to-the-
software-part-1--cg-21009
7. 7
.
http://www.worldofleveldesign.com/categories/3d_modeling/maya-tutorial-for-beginners-03-
how-to-create-custom-shelf.php
8. 8
.
http://download.autodesk.com/global/docs/maya2014/en_us/index.html?url=files/GUID-
6B531DDB-3440-4216-A322-FB6CD1EA83A1.htm,topicNumber=d30e13026
9. 9
.
http://www.arch.cuhk.edu.hk/server1/staff1/marcaurel/desc9019/tutorials/Readings/mayaDocs/
Basics.pdf
10. http://www.gamedesigning.org/animation/different-types/
11. http://webneel.com/different-types-of-animation-styles
12. http://www.animationcareerreview.com/articles/10-types-3d-animation-software-worth-
knowing
13. http://www.autodesk.in/products/maya/overview