Introduction: Here comes MAYA!

Helicopter Exercise

First exercise, also acted as the introduction to Maya environment was the helicopter tracing exercise.

Following the provided outline guidance, I traced the form of a helicopter (or could be a dolphin really, if you wish) using basic cube form in the Polygon menu set. The technique applied here is extruding, and manipulating the extrusion into the preferred size and shape using the handles.

Since Maya is quite complicated, it's worthy to note that in the extrude tool, we are provided with:

- arrows (blue, green and red) to drag the surface along the 3 axis (X,Y and Z)

- little box just at the tip of the arrow, to manipulate the size

- a light blue circle around the arrows to rotate the surface.

Also it's possible to extrude more than 1 surface symmetrically. When we select several surfaces and extrude them, we are presented with one additional handle: a small light blue circle on the upright corner to navigate the manner of multiple extrusions.

So here's our first exercise:

1. The outline for guidance

 

2. The completed polygon extrusions

3. After adding a key ring and smooth surface

 

note:

- press G in keyboard to repeat the last tool used.

- use the side way and top view to keep the extrusion align with any of the 3 axis.