Maya Foundation: Home Study Course - Complete Beginner's Guide to Learning Maya Modeling & UVing
The Home-Study Tutorial Course to Learning Maya Modeling & UVing as a Complete Beginner Without Any Prior 3D Experience
No prior 3d experience/modeling knowledge required:
- Learn Maya modeling and UVing as a complete beginner
- Save thousands of dollars from attending college classes
- Save months of wasted time watching irrelevant YouTube tutorials
- 65+ videos and 18+ hours
Begin Creating Your Own Custom 3D Environments and Props
If you want to become a 3d environment artist, you need to create your own ORIGINAL assets and props using the industry standard software.
Using existing 3d assets you've downloaded from various marketplaces is not going to cut it.
No one wants to see the same environment asset or prop being over and over again by everyone else. You might be able to get away with it for a bit but you always know you didn't create anything in your environment. You constructed it using someone else's work.
And let's be honest - we all want to create our own custom 3d work from scratch. It's the only way you truly say: “I CREATED THAT!”
How Do You Create Custom 3D Environments?
- First: you need to learn and use industry standard software such as Maya.
- Second: you need to learn how to properly model and UV your models.
- Third: you need to constantly practice modeling and UVing ORIGINAL 3d environments, props and assets over and over again.
What 3D Software Do You Need to Learn?
There are many 3d modeling software out there. These include Maya, 3dsMax, Blender, Modo, Cinema4D and many others.
All of them have their strengths and a large devoted community of users. But there is only ONE that has been the standard 3d software for over 20+ years and it is Autodesk Maya.
Maya is used in production pipelines for video games, film, medical field, architecture, simulations and many other industries.
It is used by AAA studios, independent studios, freelancers and hobbyist.
How Do You Begin Learning Maya for Environment Creation?
Maya is difficult software to learn as a complete beginner.
You can use Maya to model, UV, rig, animate, create visual effects and render with. Each of these would require its own separate tutorial course to cover. Because of this, you don't know what you should learn first and where to even begin.
There are 3 things you need to focus when learning Maya for environment creation.
First is learning how to get started using Maya. This includes viewport navigation, working with polygon objects, snapping objects, modifying pivot points, blocking out environments using basic shapes, building environments to scale and becoming comfortable using Maya.
Second is learning all the polygonal modeling techniques and tools. These include extrude, bevel, Boolean operations, inserting edges, creating additional cuts, circularize, bridge, target weld and many more. All these will give you the control over modeling any environment or prop.
Third is learning how to UV or Unwrap your models. UVing or UV Unwrapping is a method of making sure textures will appear on your models correctly. UVing is probably the most misunderstood and frustrating concept to grasp for beginners. But don't worry, I show you exactly what you need to know and how to do it. Many techniques and tips are covered to make sure you understand the UVing process.
You DO NOT need to attend online classes or go to college to learn Maya for 3d environment creation. With the right tutorial course and instructions you can learn how to use Maya, how to model and UV in one immersive weekend.
I understand how difficult this software is for a beginner, because I was once that frustrated beginner.
I've been teaching Maya since 2008 on World of Level Design. I've also taught Maya as a college instructor in a very intensive program at Dave School in Orlando, teaching complete beginners on how to use Maya from scratch in a very short amount of time.
I've seen what beginners struggle with Maya first hand. I don't want you to struggle. I want you to learn Maya quickly. I structured this tutorial course in a way that I know what you need to learn in what order. Everything is methodically presented from one video to the next so you learn exactly what you need to know.
Most importantly, tutorials have been live tested with hundreds of beginner students who never used Maya before.
What you have here is a home-study course packed with direct how-to knowledge gathered from years of experience. Nothing is left to chance. This is the most direct to the point modeling and UVing tutorial home-study course you will ever find.
What You Will Learn From "Maya Foundation: Home-Study Course":
- Learn to use 3d modeling software the professional environment artist use everyday
- Save months of wasted time watching YouTube tutorials that don’t teach you what you need to know
- Save thousands of dollars attending college classes
- Tutorials have been live tested with hundreds of beginner students who never used Maya before
- Learn all essential shortcuts and menus that will speed up your Maya modeling and UVing
- Master Maya navigation in 8 minutes
- How to use component modes to model objects
- Learn to snap objects to each other, on the grid and how to fully control your objects pivot points
- How to block out your scenes prior to modeling so you get the right scale and dimension of your environments
- Learn over 20+ different modeling tools in Maya
- How to use extrude to create additional geometry from faces and edges
- How to round out your corners on geometry using bevel
- How to use the most versatile and most flexible modeling tool, Multi-Cut to insert extra edges and cut your geometry
- How to close up holes or open-border edges on your models
- How to control soft/hard edges on your 3d models
- How to simplify geometry and merge edges or vertices using the Target Weld
- How to create arches and connect geometry using Bridge
- How to use the new Live Booleans in 2023+ version of Maya and the legacy version of Booleaons prior to 2023
- How to create complex circular or cylindrical shapes from flat surfaces
- How to use the Mirror Tool, Symmetry mode and avoid common pitfalls with Mirror and Symmetry
- How to fix your geometry using Cleanup
- How to setup reference image planes to model from
- How to UV your 3d models - fully explained
- How to quickly work with UV Editor so you can begin UVing
- How to UV Planar Project your meshes correctly
- Learn to use Cut and Sew UVs
- How to UV complex cylindrical shapes in 3 steps (great for wires, ropes, pipes, etc.)
- What is texel density and how to match all UV shells in their texel density
- Why is 0-1 UV space so important and how to lay out your UVs correctly
- How to save a UV Screenshot so you can bring it into Photoshop to texture it
- And much, much more...
List of All Videos Included
Module 1 includes 18 videos (4 hour and 29 min); each video is 1080p HD and mp4:
- Introduction to Module 1 (05:25)
- Setting Up Your First Project (06:56)
- Interface Overview (18:13)
- Viewport Navigation (08:17)
- Viewport Options (09:13)
- Working with Basic Geometry Primitives (28:00)
- Object Component Modes (07:00)
- Axis Orientation: Move, Rotate, Scale Settings (08:30)
- Setting Up Your Grid, Scale and Heads Up Display (15:17)
- Saving, Opening and Starting New Scenes (09:33)
- Geometry Blockout Exercise (1:13:31)
- Snapping Objects and Controlling Pivot Points (32:34)
- Triangles vs Quads vs NGons (03:23)
- Deleting Faces, Edges, Vertices and Making Better Selections (12:38)
- Custom Polygon Display (08:59)
- Deleting Object Construction History (04:42)
- How to Create and Manage Custom Shelves (10:57)
- Using Display Layers (06:10)
Module 2 includes 27 videos (8 hours and 23 min); each video is 1080p HD and mp4:
- Introduction (07:25)
- Scene Setup for Modeling (06:06)
- Combine and Separate (05:54)
- Modeling a Wooden Pallet (26:40)
- Extrude (21:27)
- Modeling a Wooden Crate (14:14)
- Bevel (09:39)
- Insert Edge Loop (05:53)
- Multi-Cut (18:08)
- Modeling a Metal Barrel (39:27)
- Append to Poly and Fill Hole (10:24)
- Hard/Soft Edges and Reverse Normals (15:51)
- Modeling a Cinder Block (15:15)
- Connect Component and Connect Tool (09:43)
- Extract and Duplicate Components (07:20)
- Merge and Target Weld (12:20)
- Bridge (15:28)
- Modeling a Traffic Cone (30:58)
- Booleans Legacy (16:51)
- Booleans 2023+ (26:25)
- Circularize (10:13)
- Extrude Along a Curve (23:37)
- Smooth and Subdivision Modeling (12:32)
- Mirror and Symmetry (22:03)
- Creating Image Planes to Model From (17:12)
- Fixing Your Geometry (29:05)
- Modeling a Wall with a Window Using Image Planes (01:13:35)
Module 3 includes 21 videos (5 hours and 17 min); each video is 1080p HD and mp4:
- Introduction - What Are UVs (07:43)
- Material Overview - Creating and Using Materials on Objects (23:28)
- UV Editor Introduction (16:50)
- Grid Settings (04:10)
- UV Grid Checker Pattern and UV Grid Texture (07:18)
- Automatic Mapping (12:26)
- Planar Projections (36:04)
- Cut and Sew (16:11)
- UVing Simple Cylindrical Shapes (09:50)
- UVing Complex Cylindrical Shapes (10:09)
- UVing Spheres (15:46)
- UV Texel Density (13:16)
- UV Layout (17:40)
- Transform UVs and UV Toolkit (09:45)
- UV Sets and Preserve UVs (06:53)
- Saving UV Screenshot (10:07)
- UVing Wooden Pallet (08:53)
- UVing Cinder Block (14:09)
- UVing Metal Barrel (16:16)
- UVing Traffic Cone (14:37)
- UVing Wall/Window/Door (45:43)