To participate in this course you should download a functional version of Maya. There is a student version as well as a version for a trial period. In the first tutorial we’ll get used to the basic navigation shortcuts in Maya. We’ll also create a NURBS torus and render it. The next tutorials let you create surfaces from curves. This unfolds the aesthetics and elegance of NURBS modeling. Each lesson ends with a homework for you. In the following lesson, I’ll explain my way to solve that task. At the end of this course you’ll not be a beginner, you’ll be an expert. And maybe you feel inspired to use other elements of Maya. It’s one of the most complex and most rich pieces of software ever programmed.A few details of the course: Maya has an object and a component mode. In the object mode you create and modify curves and surfaces. The component mode lets you dive into the details of such curves and surfaces. In 3D modeling it’s often those details which make a product design succeed or fail. Miniature changes can have a huge impact. A little dose of deformation using for example Maya’s Sculpt Deformer makes your geometry less symmetrical and maybe more inspiring. We’ll create a bath tub from just 3 curves and we find out that two more curves do a much better job, but 10 curves are just too much. The internet lets you download all kinds of 3D objects, most of which come in a polygon format. This course tells you how to deal with poly “meshes” as a NURBS enthusiast. And of course, lighting and rendering is always crucial for visualization: You can model the most elegant car fender; if you don’t light and render it, you’re client will send it back.
