Apply the Texture to the Object.
Now we want to see the picture of the dagger on the plane. In order to do that, first we need to open up Hypershade, Maya's texture managing editor.
From the top menu choose: Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade
On the left-hand column in Hypershade you most likely see a button that says "Create Textures" and below it is "2d Textures" and several icons under that labeled Bulge, Checker, cloth, etc. But we don't want the Create Textures menu viewable, we want the Create Materials menu viewable.
Click and hold on the small black arrow next to Creat Textures and choose "Create Materials" from the drop-down. Now you should see a list that says "Anisotropic, Blinn, Lambert, etc." These are all types of material shaders.
Click on the one called Lambert.
A square node with a shaded sphere should have appeared in the Work Area. You can move around the work area just like you would move around the viewport (by holding down Alt+Middle Mouse Button to pan, and Alt+Right Mouse Button to zoom in and out.)
Right-Click and hold on the Lambert node and choose Attribute Editor from the drop-down menu. The Attribute Editor will most likely appear in the main viewport along the left side. I would recommend you minimize the Hypershade window or move it out of the way so you can see the attribute editor more easily. When done with this we will need hypershade open for one more thing before we can close it.
From in the Attribute Editor click on the checker-box to the right of Color. Another window will pop up. Make sure it's set to a "Normal" map, and click on the File button.
The attribute editor will change after a moment and you will be given the option to click on a Folder icon to browse for the image. Click the folder button, and location the image we saved earlier.
We have now created the needed textuer file, but we don't have it applied to our plane yet. Select the plane and go back into Hypershade. Right-click and hold down on the lambert map we created before and choose Assign Material to Selected.
The texture should now appear on the plane. Close Hypershade. If your Attribute editor replace the channel box along the right side of your viewport, return to the channel box by clicking the small button in the upper-most right-hand corner.
The scene should now look something like this: (it would be a good idea to save if you haven't done so already).
Enter Sub-Object mode: Vertex
right-click and hold on the box until the sub-object menu appears around your cursor. Drag your mouse to the Vertext sub-object option and release. You should now see little purple vertices.
We're going to move the vertices so they line up with the gold trim areas of the handle.
Drag a selection marquee around the groups of verticies you want to move, and using the move tool to move them.
The verticies in the center need to be made smaller so select all of them and switch to the Scale tool. Make sure that you scale by clicking on the Yellow box in the center. This will uniformly scale all of the verticies.
First scall all four of the internal rows, then just the two inner most. Then scale the top pair of vertex roys so they are large like the top of the handle.
At this point we need to add some more detail to the mesh in order to make some more adjustments, but since we've already manually edited parts of it, we can no longer to back to the INPUTS node to add more subdivisions. Now we need to add additional edges through another means. This is why I asked that you install MJ Poly Tools at the beginning of this tutorial. It is possible to do this next step without MJPoly tools, but it is far more tedius and annoying. MJ Poly Tools makes this step quick and easy.
Right-Click on your box again and choose Edge from the menu. Now click on one of the edges of the very center gold nub. Go up to the MJ Poly Tools menu (it should have been added to your Maya if the installation worked) and choose Select Ring. Now all of the Edges around this area have been selected.
Next Choose MJ Poly Tools > Connect Verts / Edge / Faces Slide. A new edge will appear in the center.
Right-Click and switch to Vertext Sub-Object mode again. Select the new center verticies and scale them up.
Repeat this process for the other two metal rings.
At this point it'd a good time to tap the space bar to toggle to 4-views, put your mouse over the perspective view and tap the space bar again to full-screen the perspective. Maneuver around the scene using Alt+LMB to get a look at the object you've created at this point.
It should look something like the above image. Now it looks pretty obvious to me that this sword probably doesn't have such a thick handle, however it does look somewhat ovoid at the same time. If you still in Vertex select, drag a selection around the entire object to select everything and switch to the scale tool. Instead of transforming from the center square to even scale everything selected at once, click and drag only on the square that's pointing downwards. This will scale the verticies only on the Y axis, squishing the handle flatter.
Squish it to a size that you feel is appropriate and then switch to Edge sub-object mode again.
This time select one of the edges that are going vertically in the scene and MJPoly > Select Ring.
Choose MJ Poly > Connect Vertex/Edg.../Slide and a line will appear down the center of the handle. Click on one of these new edges and choose MJ Poly > Select Loop and it will select the new edges.
Switch to the Scale tool and this time scale only along the X axis (the Red Box). This will around the sides out some.
Lets repeat this process except this time we'll be adding a loop around the top center of the handle and pulling it out only a little. Select one of the edges along the center-top and choose MJ Poly > Select Ring. Then MJ Poly > Connect Edges...Slide. Select one of the new edges and choose MJ Poly > Select Loop. The new loop should be going down the center around the entire handle and the new edges should all be selected.
With the edges selected, switch to the scale tool and scale the edges up on the Y axis only to give the top and bottom edges of the handle a rounded edge too.
Now we're going to add the crown-shaped attachment at the top of the sword. To do this we will Extrude from the top upwards to create new geometry.
Right-click-hold on the mesh and select sub-object mode Face. Now you should see a small blue dot in the center of every face on the object. Rotate around your object using Alt+LMB so you can see the top/head of the sword handle. Click on one of the dots of one of the faces; it should turn orange. While holding down Shift, click on the other 4 faces along the top to select them together.
Now if you haven't added anything to your custom shelf tab yet (or if you just haven't added "extrude face yet" I recommend that you do that now. Switch to the Custom Tab, and while holding down Control and Shift at the same time, Choose Edit Polygons > Extrude Face (it's 4th from the top.)
This will add an extrude face button to your custom tab and make it quicker and easier to access.
With your four head faces still selected, click on the Extrude Face icon we just made. Now the Extrude Manipulator "Gizmo" has appeared around the faces. It looks like of like a combination of the move and scale tools with a circle around it all. If you click on the Blue Arrow and drag outwards along the Z axis it will push a set of faces out from the existing faces.
Before continuing there is one very important step that you need to take everytime you extrude more than one face at a time. In the channel box scroll way down through the long list of channel variables you can edit to the one forth from the bottom that says "Keep Faces Tog". Type On in this channel and hit enter.
This tells maya to extrude the faces as a single group instead of four individual faces. This keeps their connecting verticies welded together.
In addition to pulling faces outwards on the Z axis, you may also want to scale it down along the Y axis. The top crown appears like it may be thinner in depth then the handle itself.
I only did two extrudes from the head. The first extrude translated (moved) along Z a samll ammount, but scaled inwards on Y and X quite a bit. (make sure that Keep Faces is toggled on). Then I extruded again, this time translating on Z a lot, out to the very tip of the head. I scaled on X out to the full extent of the head, and scaled up on Y a bit.
Now I will add new edges by selecting the ring of edges between the two extrudes and connecting them with MJ Poly Tools, just like before.
Toggle back and forth from your perspective view to your top view as needed. After creating the new edges between the two extrudes, I selected those verticies and scaled them in to create the curve.
Next well be creating the jagged crown shape along the top. Select the two middle verticies on each side and use the scales tool to pull them in more towards where the inner part of the zig-zag is.
Return to the perspective view so that you can see the head of the sword handle. Notice how the four vertices we just pulled in aren't connected on the top? In order for this next part to work properly we need these vertices to have edges connecting them. For this we will use the Split Polygons Tool.
If you haven't already created a short-cut icon for the split polygons tool in your custom bar, do it now. It is also under the Edit Polygons menu. Have your Custom Tab active, hold down Ctrl+Shift and choose Edit Polygons > Split Polygon Tool. It will add the icon to the menu.
Select the Split Polygon Tool and click-hold-drag on the edge by one of the vertices and drag towards the vertex until it snaps to it. Click on the middle edge and then click and drag on the opposite vertex so it snaps to it as well. Hit enter to complete the cut. Repeat this on the other pair of verticies.
Once these edges were in place, I returned to the top view and moved the edges so they formed the zig-zag of the crown. I toggled back to perspective so I could see the general shape and decide if I needed to change any proportions or scales. I scaled the middle indents inwards and the very center spike up on Y so that the crown had a gradual curve from thin on the edges to thicker in the center.
At this point the to is basically finished. The hand guard at the base of the grip would be completed in basically the same manor that the top was created. Select the four faces of the bottom this time, but instead of initially extruding the shape inwards, you'd extrude it outwards to create a wider crown-base. The zig-zag shape would be created the exact same was as before.
If you get stumped on a step, just go back in the tutorial and follow the same instructions from before to retrace your steps. Remember when you use extrude to set "Keep Faces Toggle" ON. And remember to use the plit polygon tool to connect the verticies onthe inner points.
This is what I ended up with for the handle guard. There were two things I did differently from the top of the handle. One, I didn't bother with a middle edge loop since the edges between the two extrusions formed a straight line instead of a curve. The extra edges weren't nessecary to get the right shape. Second, I made it a point to keep the verticies in the center outwards to the edge of the blade.
We're going to be extruding the blade out of the faces that make up this area in just a moment, so it's important that it be as wide as the blade needs to be.
Right-Click and switch to Face sub-object mode and select the four faces on the inside of the handle guard. We will be using extrude on these faces but instead of pulling outwards along Z, we will only be scaling inwards along Y to create the thinner blade start. (make sure you remember to toggle on the Keep Faces Input). If needed, switch to vertex edit after you extrude the shape inwards to edit the shape of the new faces to better match the blade shape.
Now with the four newly extruded faces selected toggle to four view mode and extrude again. There's a chance that Maya may have the gizmo a little screwy at this point. I extruded out with the blue arrow (traditionally the Z axis) butthe arow was actually pointing in a 45 degree angle. It's possible it was just an odd thing that happened to me, but just in case it isn't I'm including it in the tutorial (I encounter things like this a lot in Maya, so it's probably good that I cover it anyways).
Instead of going out in a straight manor like one would expect and hope it to do, it fanned out in a rather irretating manor. If this happens to you, don't panic, it's easy to correct. Just pull it out far enouth that you can select the verticies of the new extrusion.
Select the row of verticies and using the scale tool, pull them back into a straight line. Then scale them closer together to form the propor shape of the blade.
After that, I only had to make two more extrusions and adjust and scale the verticies until I liked the shape of the blade. At the very end-tip, I pulled the center vertex out to be the point and pulled the rest back to form a better point.
To complete this model, I went into face sub-object select mode and selected all of the faces of the entire mesh. Then I went to Edit Polygons > Normals (near bottom) > soften/harden; and Click on the Box.
Enter a value over 30 (under 30 makes the edges appear harder, over 30 makes them softer/smoother) and hit the Hard/Soft button. This should smooth the polygons over some, getting the result shown here.
Well that's as far as I'm taking this tutorial. You can feel free to add more detail to the mesh and create smoother transitions along the handle and the crown areas. You can add more detail along the blade and define the edges more, or you can simply take what you've learned from this tutorial and apply it to modeling something else.
I hope it was helpful to you in getting a better understanding of using Maya and has gotten you more comfortable with the interface of the program. To download the Maya file containing this dagger, simply click the link below.
Click Here to Download Maya File
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This tutorial, all of it's images and text are copyright 2003-2004 Athey Nansel and Bakaneko.com. Repriting this tutorial on another website without permission is prohibited.
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We want to be able to see the reference plane even through the box we've created so we're going to set our viewport to "X-Ray". This Option is under the viewport menu Shading > Shade Options > X-Ray.