Chair on Maya

We were set a homework task to complete a Lynda tutorial on how to create a chair. At the moment, I am really liking the tutorials, as I feel that they slowly take you through each step, while learning a great deal myself. In this tutorial I had to create a two chairs and a table.

Although this task sounds really difficult, I really am looking forward to getting started and posting my result.

The bend tool in Maya.

The guy that was teaching us was mentioning a lot about the bend tool. At first I had a bit of struggle trying to find and use this tool. It wasn't until the help of Google and a classmate that I fully understood it.

Once I knew how to use it, it became second nature. Simply all you have to do is select the deformation tab at the top and click on the bent stick.

This is what it looks like.

I had to create two long sticks and use the bend tool, only slightly as the two back chair legs had a slight curve in them. Once I had done this, I could then proceed onto the other two legs and the seat. 

The other two legs were really simple, all I had to do was create another two sticks, this time they would be half the size of the other legs. Using the interactive split tool, I could cut into the chair legs and create a slight edge to my chair. I would then go on to delete where I cut and then fill the gap as it then leaves a flat surface.

The seat was even easier, all I had to do was to create a cube in polygons and make sure that its a perfect square and only a couple of centimeters high. This needs to be matching the other legs so we then have the basis of what the chair will look like.

The outline for the chair.

Next we will add a significant amount of detail to the chair such as the back support, the linking of the chair legs at the back and the seat support.

First I went on to do the back support, This was a little tricky and required a fair bit of time to get used to it. I had to put the bend tool back to use again as the back legs had already been bent. I created a a rectangle that would be the right size for the back of the chair and used the bend tool. Once I had got it to the right shape, I had slotted it back into chair, Then by simply pressing ctrl + D, I had copied it, placed it above the previous, then repeated this process once more.

The next thing that I had to do was add the top of the chair to the back, This was a much easier process. I had created a rectangle which would slot in nicely at the top of the chair and was able to rotate it so it fit in place. Then by using the insert edge loop tool, I created several subdivisions, meaning that I could move and adjust the object to my liking. The subdivisions that I add, the more detail I could put in. By selecting the vertex, I dragged them up and put them in the right place.

Moving the vertex to my liking.

The next thing that I had decided to do was do the seat support. This was extremely easy to get past. All I did was create a rectangle that would suit my chair. I lined it up making sure it was the right size and pushed it in a bit to give it depth. Then I duplicated this 3 times, rotating two so that they fit the sides.

A finished chair.

The only thing that I had left to do was to make it seem as if the chair seat had been molded to sit a person. Again, I already knew what I was doing, all I had to do was use the insert edge loop tool and select the pieces that I wanted to lower, clicking on the vertex. using the move tool, all i did was drag them down to get this effect.

I can honestly say that I am really happy with the results that I got with this chair and this is by far, the best thing that I have created on Maya so far. I can only hope that I can carry this onto my next chair and table. Its also been a lot of fun, I really am enjoying it so far.

The round chair.

 The next thing that I had to do was to create another chair, only this time, I will be giving it a different structure compared to the last one. 

I started off with a cylinder, this was the sit available for a character to sit on. Doing that was simple enough, the next thing that I had to do was create a torus. I had to make sure that this was not too thick otherwise it would ruin the plans for the legs and support.

I had cut the torus in half, selecting the faces and deleting them. I then had selected the end edge and had extruded it on both sides. The image that you see above is evidence of where I got to.

A completed round chair.

From this point on it was much easier to proceed. I had to use the bend tool that I had used in the beginning of the wooden chair. This was because I wanted to get a round frame to support the back of whoever would be sitting on the chair. On each of the different sides, I selected the straight part of the rounded pole and used the bend tool. From here, I went on to add curvature. This made the legs bend but in the wrong direction. From here I used to rotate tool to line the legs up properly and ended up with perfect chair legs.

The man who was taking the tutorial then proceeded to skip the whole section on how he made the rest of the chair, so it was up to me to do it myself. The way that I did it was I took the last rounded bit of the legs and deleted the rest. I then separated the two legs so they were each one leg. I then rotated them into the right position, all the while scaling them down in width, while looking at my references.

The only bit that was left of the chair for me to build was the bar holding the legs together. This again was simple as all I had to do was create a torus and line it up into the right position. I had to still make sure that it was all in proportion. 

Now that the whole of the chair had been built, I had a little bit of tweaking to do. This only took me a couple of minutes. I started off by selecting the circle that we called the seat. Once all of the faces of it had been selected I simply extruded them and scaled them again. Then by pressing "G" I repeated the extrusion and pulled the seat out ever so slightly. This gave it the realism that I was looking for. The last bit to do was to select all the legs and the round bar and smoothing the edges. This actually made the bars seem like metal and again added realism.

Starting on the table.

The next thing that I was tasked with was to create a wooden table to complete the set with the wooden chair. I started this off by creating a long plank, this is then duplicated 6 more times with the last one being rotated and sitting under the block. I made sure that the planks of the table were visible by separating them by half a centimeter. The next thing that I had to do was get the plank that was sitting under the table and rotate it 90 degrees. The thing I had to do was add an extra 2 edge loops into the new plank, then, by selecting the edge loop and moving it around I managed to get this effect to make it look like half the planks side was looping in.

Adding the legs and the support.

This next bit was quite easy as all I had to do was create a long rectangle coming out of the blank below the table. I then selected the vertex's at the bottom and and moved it in line. This stage was then repeated for the other side, the only difference being that I had rotated it, so it looked the same on the other side. After this I had to create a a bridge in the middle to hold the legs together. Again all I did here was create a long block and stuck it directly in the middle of the two legs. The last thing that I had to do here was place the legs in the right place and duplicate them and do the same on the opposite side.

The finished product.

The one thing that I had left to do was to put the last block to hold the table together, again this was just using an extended cube. The table was all finished but to complete it, I had to add a circle table for the circle chair. Now this was actually easier than it sounds. I first started off with a cylinder and selected the top and bottom faces. I was then left with a circle of faces. The next thing that I did was match each edge to its opposite by using the bridge tool. Then I separated them and made them look like planks, just like the other table. The last bit to do was to add the legs. All I did here was copy the planks and legs off the previous table, but bought the legs in even more so that they didn't go over the edge.

The finished tables.

I was then tasked with trying to texture the chair and tables, this was extremely hard. I copied what the guy was doing on the tutorial but it would let me place a blinn on anything, so I could not set it up suing the checkered boxes. The next thing I tried was to place the wood material onto the chair. Again, this didn't work and I ended up with just a plain looking table and chair, which infuriated me. I tried looking up people who had the same problem on the internet, yet nothing came up, so this is what I ended up with.

I did enjoy this task, well, until I got to the texturing section. My aim to set myself is to learn how to overcome this problem, whether it be by asking a teacher or by working it out myself. Its a key skill that I need to use.