Back to Basics

The main goal of this mini project is to get back into 3D modeling after being out of it for few years to focus on sprite animation. I believe the last time I really spent any quality time with Maya was back in 2007 while working on some character animations for a game prototype in the early days of Island Officials. After we moved over to Nintendo DS development, we've been mostly focusing on 2D art. And while I love 2D art and animation, I don't want to let my 3D skills continue to get rusty!

Unfortunately, I've found that every time I leave Maya alone for more than a few months, I need to spend some time re-learning it. And this is probably the biggest gap I've had since I first started toying with 3D modeling back in college ten years ago. It's almost a bit intimidating going back after so long, but part of me misses it, too.

I decided to start with re-introducing myself to Maya 7. It's an older version, but it's the last one I used and the version I currently have access to. I know that Maya's seen a lot of changes since then, but I figure that if I have an opportunity to learn a newer version of Maya or another 3D package, it would be easier to locate the functions I'm looking for if I'm first able to refresh myself with what I was once so familiar. Plus, it's less of a barrier to actually creating the work if I don't have the added pressure of learning a new program, and right now it's all about creation and improving techniques that could be applied to any 3D package.

Fortunately, in my first day or so of modeling, a lot more has come back to me than I was expecting, so that's a good sign. :)

I decided to start with a basic box model and take it from there. I'd like to go into my thought process while creating this model going forward. But for now, here's a really rough version of the model!