Autodesk Maya has been an industry standard for years in the field of modeling

and animation. The complex package is an excellent collection of tools and

techniques required to create stunning models from nothing. This beginner

biased tutorial will lead you through the basic 3d modeling tips and tricks in Maya.

NURBS

NURBS stands for Non Uniform Rational B-Spline. It is a mathematical model

which represents curves and surfaces. If you are not in to sculpting aspects it

simply means curved surfaces. Designers work with polygons more often when

compared with NURBS.

Maya Outliner

The outliner in Maya is a useful tool for representation of model parts as a

hierarchy. It helps you to quickly select associated parts of a prototype without

individually selecting them. Outliner requires an ordered and named collection of

objects to make things easy. Therefore it is important to name every single

surface that you developed.

Duplicate Special Tool

Maya consists of many slick features out of which using the Instance feature is

one. It helps you to work on one half of the proposed clone while the software

itself updates the other. You can also use Duplicate Special in the Edit menu to

create copies of the half that you have already created.

Points or Control Vertices

Detailed demonstrating requires proper use of control points. You can do that by

right clicking over the NURBS surface and choosing any of the required option

from the pop up context menu. Different options available include show, move,

and scale and rotate.

Before moving forward with working on your project here are few tips that will

greatly help you as a beginner. These tips are the basic ones and help you to save

time, money and effort.

Save your document

Always consider saving your hard work due to the simple reason that a power

outage or a crash will surely drench hours of your work. This is one of the basic 3d

modeling tips for beginners.

Give meaningful names

There might be a chance that some models might have more than 100 pieces.

Following an easier naming convention will surely help you later at a point when

you revisit the folder.

Approach several perspectives

Perspective wise demonstrating is a trick that every beginner should focus upon.

If your model looks great from front view, it doesn’t mean that it is a great model

from all views. As details are further added, it gets harder to make changes as and

when necessary.

Approach bigger blocks first

Crack bigger blocks first rather than working on smaller ones. Fine details can

easily be merged with existing ones in this manner. In this way you can also focus

on the entire prototype at the same time.

Autodesk Maya is an inevitable tool for numerous modeling professionals. It is

used by some of the best 3D designing organizations. If you find it really confusing

to move forward, a professional 3d modeling company is one of the better

options available if you can find the proper one out there.

Also read 3D Modelling tips and tricks that are really worthy to practice