Understanding Nurbs primitives in Maya : MAYA Tutorial

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Creating a Simple Car Wheel in Maya -- part one

Nelson Cruz
www.alias.com

©Copyright © 2003,2004 Alias Systems, a division of Silicon Graphics Limited. Used by permission

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In this tutorial, Nelson Cruz demonstrates building a simple car wheel in Maya using Nurbs primitives.

1. Create a NURBS cylinder
Create>NURBS primitives>cylinder

Check the Z Axis - Radius 6 - Height 10 - Spans 12 - hit create.

2. Select object and Translate Y 10 units and then manipulate the cylinder into a triangular shape. The best way to do this is to go into your front view and manipulate your CV in component mode.

3. To create the outline of the wheel go into your side view and create a new curve. create>CV curve tool. Lay down some points on the screen to create your outline, hit the enter key when done. The result should look like the image on the right.

4. Select the new curve and revolve surface. Go to Surfaces> Revolve

reset settings - Axis Preset Z - End Sweep Angle 72 - Segments 3 - hit revolve.

5. Select the new revolved surface and rotate Z-axis to 36°.

6. What we need to do now is create a smooth surface between the two surfaces and trim out what is not needed. Select the revolved surface, if it's not selected already, and shift select the cylinder.

Go to Edit NURBS> Surface Fillet > Circular Fillet

Reset settings - Select create curve on surface - hit fillet.

7. We now need to trim out what is no longer needed. Select the revolved surface only and go to Edit NURBS> Trim Tool. You will get a dotted line on the selected surface. What you need to do is select the side of surface you want to keep. See image below) When you select it the line will turn solid white. Hit enter. Now do the same for the cylinder. Your image should look like the one on the right.

8. Select all the surfaces and go to Edit > Delete by Type > History. This has deleted your construction history. Select the curve you created for the wheel and delete it.

9. Now we must select all the surfaces again and group them together by going to Edit > Group. This has gathered all the surfaces and created a new node for them.

10. Next we must revolve the new group so that it duplicates the surfaces on a rotation axis. To do this select one of the surfaces in your scene and hit the up arrow on your keyboard. By hitting the up arrow this has now selected the hierarchy of that object, which is the group node you have created. Next go to Edit > Duplicate

Reset settings and change the following. Rotate Z 72 - copies 4 - hit duplicate.

Your wheel is now complete. You can now select all the surfaces and group them together under one node for easy animation. If you wish to add the tire you can by creating a curve in your front view like the image below and revolving the curve the same way we did at the beginning.

Your finished wheel and tire should look like this. I will talk about texturing in part two of this tutorial.

by Nelson Cruz

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