Creating a Magnum Mecha Character in Maya: Part 3

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

1. Modelling Chest

Step 1

Open Maya. Open the robot file which was saved in the last part of the tutorial.

Step 2

With the top faces of the object selected, go to Edit Mesh > Duplicate and click on the option box.

Step 3

In the Duplicate Face Options window, turn on Separate duplicated faces option and then click on Duplicate button.

Step 4

Select and delete the half polygon faces of the duplicated objects as shown in the following image.

Step 5

With the side edge loops selected, press Ctrl-Delete keys.

Step 6

Alternatively, you can go to Edit Mesh > Delete Edge/Vertex to delete the edge loops.

Step 7

With the duplicate mesh selected, go to Show > Isolate Select > View Selected and turn on its option box. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-1 keys to isolate the mesh.

Step 8

With all faces of the isolated mesh selected, go to Edit Mesh > Extrude. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-E keys to apply the Extrude command to extrude the faces as shown in the following image.

Step 9

Extrude the faces according to the reference image.

Step 10

Unhide all model components.

Step 11

With cap faces of both ends selected, press Delete key to delete the faces as shown in the following image.

Step 12

With the half mesh selected, go to Edit > Duplicate Special command. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl-Shift-D keys.

Step 13

Jump in the vertex selection mode and edit the vertices to maintain the shape of the object according to the reference image.

Step 14

Adjust the vertices of the mesh according to the reference images in both left and front view ports.

Step 15

In the perspective view, select and extrude the top faces as shown in the following image.

Step 16

After applying Extrude command, jump in the front and side views and then edit the shape according to the reference images.

Step 17

Edit the vertices of the shape according to the reference images.

Step 18

Jump in the face selection mode and select the inward faces of the shape as shown in the following image.

Step 19

With the inward faces selected, press Delete key.

Step 20

Extrude the edge according to the reference images and as shown in the following image.

Step 21

Go to Mesh Tool > Multi-Cut tool.

Step 22

With Multi-Cut tool selected, click on the indicated vertex and edge to split the mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 23

Following the same way, insert several edges to maintain the shape topology as shown in the following image.

Step 24

With the indicated triangulated edges selected, press Delete key.

Step 25

After deleting the triangulated edges, the mesh topology of the edited shape looks as shown in the following image.

Step 26

Following the same way, extrude the back edges according to the flow of the reference image.

Step 27

Keep extruding the edges to follow the mesh flow according to the reference image.

Step 28

In the perspective view, extrude the indicated edge loop as shown in the following image.

Step 29

With the same edge loop selected, jump in the front view and then extrude it once in X axis as shown in the following image.

2. Modelling Neck and Arm Rings

Step 1

Create a polygon pipe on the grid.

Step 2

Jump in the face selection mode and delete all faces except the top faces.

Step 3

Delete the half part of the mesh too.

Step 4

With the polygon mesh selected, move and place it around the neck area of the robot as shown in the following image.

Step 5

Following the same way, create another ring polygon mesh and place it around the arm area of the robot as shown in the following image.

Step 6

With all polygon meshes selected, go to Mesh > Combine command to attach the selected polygons meshes together.

Step 7

With the half mesh selected, go to Edit > Duplicate Special command.

Step 8

Select the two indicated edges to maintain the gap between the polygons as per the reference images.

Step 9

Jump in the side view and keep extruding the selected edges according to the reference image.

Step 10

With the mesh selected, go to Mesh Tool > Append to Polygon tool.

Step 11

With the help of Append to Polygon tool, click between the gaps of the indicated parallel edge as shown in the following image.

Step 12

In this way, you can fill the gaps between the faces using Append to Polygon tool.

Step 13

With the indicated edges selected, apply Extrude command to extrude the edges as shown in the following image.

Step 14

Continue extruding the edges according to the edge flow as shown in the following image.

Step 15

After extruding, you need to adjoin the vertices. With two associate vertices selected and Shift key pressed, make a right mouse click and then select Merge Vertices command in the fly out menu.

Step 16

Following the same way, keep adjoining the vertices while maintaining the edge topology according to the reference images and as shown in the following image.

Step 17

Jump in the vertex selection mode and edit the vertices of the mesh according to the reference images.

Step 18

Following the methods shown in the previous steps, use Append to Polygon tool to fill the gaps between the faces.

Step 19

Using Insert Edge Loop tool, insert an edge loop to maintain the topology as shown in the following image.

Step 20

Extrude the indicated edge according to the polygon loops as per the reference images.

Step 21

Keep merging the corresponding vertices to maintain the shape and topology of the mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 22

After filling the gaps with the appended faces, it looks like as shown in the following image.

Step 23

Maintain the number of the edges in the arm ring as it is in the body mesh. This is essential to connect the corresponding edges together to form the adjoined mesh structure.

Step 24

Following the methods shown in the previous steps, use Append to Polygon tool to fill the gaps between the faces one by one and as shown in the following image.

Step 25

After filling the gaps between the faces, it looks like this.

Step 26

This looks nice so far, but you need to tweak it a bit to get a detailed structure.

Step 27

To add more details to the mesh and creating a crisp hard surface structure, arrange the edge loops as shown in the following image.

You can see how crisp and sharp the edges look after editing.

Step 28

To divide front and back parts of the chest mesh, insert edges with using Multi Cut tool as shown in the following image.

Step 29

With the indicated edge selected, go to Mesh Tool > Offset Edge Loop as shown in the following image.

Step 30

With Offset Edge Loop tool, insert an offset edge loop to divide front and back mesh as shown in the following image.

Step 31

Delete the center face loop which was created during offsetting the edges.

Step 32

The front and back parts of the mesh looks like this.

Step 33

In this way, the upper front and back parts of the robot have been completed. In the next part of the tutorial, I’ll show you how to create arm and hand.

Conclusion

Hope you have enjoyed the tutorial. In the next part of the series, I'll show you how to create arm and hand of the robot.