Modeling a Theme Park Ride in 3d with Maya (Beginner)

Setting up your project folder is extremely important in Maya, and within production in general.  In this way all of your files will remain grouped together in some way - within each folder, based upon project.  This is a very good habit to get into with all of your projects.

To download the Course Materials use the links provided in the General Info - Material Downloads Section - Labeled as Lecture 1 of this course.  Or you may download the Main Scene files from the attached Resources Zip.

In this video the discussion turns towards workflow, and how to setup Maya to possibly increase productivity, by using Hotkeys, setting preferences, and installing simple scripts.

Included within the downloadable materials are 2 light scripts - both of them are very similar - the one used throughout this training series is "lights.mel". You may also find this script within the "Scripts" folder within your project directory.

Modeling overview / workflow using nurbs surfaces - covering the basics, to ease terminology and use later in the course.

Most good design comes from lots of research, ideas, and concepts. Within this section we delve into creating the roller coaster track, but before diving in head first - we take a look at a handful of actual roller coasters and various elements that make them up.

In this video we take a look at the process used for creating a track in a simple way. A little bit of practice on this simplified track goes a long way in understanding the technique prior to diving in to the real deal.

Using the techniques previously discussed, we begin the creation of the roller coaster track we will be using for the rest of this course.

In this addendum - we cover saving our scene file and the format being used.

Here we add some height to our track - with some simple vertical adjustments

The look and feel of the objects you design is important in creating something that appears to be semi-believable or tangible. For any subject matter, it is best to gather some research of similar objects and try to borrow ideas from the different references and create your very own style. This goes a long way into developing your own personal style. In this video we tackle this aspect by checking out some references and then creating the look and feel of our track.

Now that we have the look and feel down - we can finally see what this track will look like fleshed out. In this video, we go over the process used to generate the geometry, from the initial design completed in the last video.

In reality, having a banked turn allows a vehicle to stay on its path without leaving the path boundary at a given speed. Normally this is done via an incline towards the inside of the turn. When it comes to roller coasters, banking allows the track cars to pivot around turns at high speeds with minimal force applied to each passenger (downward force). This downwards force keeps each person from being thrown from the car/track, and/or jerked violently resulting in a whiplash injury, as the car would have kept its course on the defined path (horizontal force).

In this video, we cover manually adding banking to our track curves using a function of the motion path we used to generate the track geometry.

There are many different types and styles of track supports - each with its own form and function. After looking at a few examples, we begin to tackle the creation of the track support geometry.

Now that we have the track geometry completed - we need to add it to our track. In this video we place our geometry and use a series of techniques to manipulate it in such a way for it to follow the track without too much manual placement. Special attention is then given to the areas where the track overlaps, as the support bars would normally intersect with the path - in these cases we use our secondary geometry that we had created in the last lesson and place them only in those areas that need it.

Once all of the support bar geometry is in place - our track is technically complete. In the next section we tackle the creation of the roller coaster car.

In this lesson we go over the design ideas and reference for our car. We also take a look at the finished product, and some of the components that make it up.

After checking out some examples we begin modeling our car geometry base. A slew of techniques are discussed and used to create the main body component of the car. We will also touch on optimizing some of the model areas after the initial creation stage, so that we are not left with an overly heavy model.

Now that we have the base car geometry completed, we start the process of adding in the details. This includes adding bevels, headlights, front plate, bars, bumpers, rivets, etc.

We continue to detail our car model - adding in the Piping, and the Front Bumper.

Detailing any model can be daunting, and sometimes it is hard to judge how much is enough. In this final detail lesson, we wrap our process and add in the final details, rivets, and mirroring.

No roller coaster is complete without a seat. In this lesson we create the seat base for our car.

Now that we have the base structure of the seat completed, we may proceed with adding the details. This includes the rest of the support bars, and the locking mechanism object behind the seat itself. We will also adjust any other pieces as necessary to get a better look and feel for our seat and car.

No ride seat is complete without a restraint system. In this lesson we go about creating a restraint harness for each seat.

Without some wheels on our car - it will not function very well. In this lesson we get started creating our wheel assembly, as well as some design aspects.

With our wheel assembly finished, now we are tasked with attaching it to the car. In this lesson we will cover adding, duplicating, and mirroring the assembly to position and place them onto the car geometry. We will also need to create some kind of mechanism to make it appear like it is a part of the car.

Here we finally get to put it all together - the mine car and the track. We also tackle the process of making it look like there are a bunch of cars on the track as opposed to just the one.

What is a ride without a cool sign and name!!! In this lesson we go over some references and ideas for what we will be creating. Remember it all starts with a simple idea.

Bonus Content - Theme Park Elements help to bring your theme park to life, and allow for limitless customization and personalization of your ride. In each of these short videos, we will cover modeling each of some of the most common elements found in theme parks.

The Purpose of these bonus videos is to introduce modeling methods that we may not have covered throughout the rest of the course. Typically shorter, each video will cover a method of creating an object that can be used repeatedly. While there are many methods and techniques that can be used and/or interchanged with the ones shown, we will cover a decent range of different techniques to help you in the future on your own projects.

In this video we create our first Bonus object - the trash can. While not overly complicated, this object can be used in many different types of scenes, not just the themepark.

In this short bonus video, we will create a modular gate / piperail. This is also one of those objects that is very useful for many different types of scenes. The boolean command is used to merge 2 separate objects together - this same command can also be used to subtract one object from the other - or to leave just the intersection of the 2 objects - thus creating a sort of compound object. The main downside to using Boolean Intersection and/or Boolean Difference is that the resulting mesh will rarely be properly formed, and thus may require more tweaking if they need to be reworked in any way. The same applies to Boolean Union, which is what we use in this lesson - careful planning can help the resulting mesh and require less work post boolean.

Here we look at a method to create a type of flag that has some nice wind shape to it. Deformers are used to help "deform" our flag object to get it to the desired look.

In this lesson we will take a look at a method to create a turnstile. Turnstiles are used at a wide variety of areas, including parks ,stadiums, rides, museums,office lobbies, exhibits, etc... Also turnstiles can be used to give an accurate count of attendance, and help keep individuals in single-file through a particular route. As with most individual objects or items, this can be put into a model library, and re-used as seen fit.

Keep in mind the methods used to create any of these objects, is but one method of many, and is solely meant to increase ones thought process and understanding of the modeling process.

Here, we go over a few different methods to create walkways in your scenes. Walkways simply help bring your scenes together and add that final touch. Creating modular walkway sections can be a great way to quickly populate an area or level.

Foliage can be one of those daunting tasks that many artists fear. Luckily in this lesson we discover one of Maya's helpful tools - Paint Fx. We will only be using this tool to help generate our foliage, but it has many other uses as well.

Keep in mind when creating trees, grass, etc.. with this tool, it is in your best interest to create a few different versions - then convert to polygons, and save them each individually. In this way we can add them to our library of usable objects and have them on hand in the future.

Creating a landscape for your scenes, even if it is a simple one, can add a lot depth and take them to the next level. Pair them with a few stray objects or foliage and it can help the scene look more realistic and natural.

In this lesson, we go over creating a simple rolling landscape for our roller coaster, using some of Maya's sculpting tools. These tools should not be limited to creating landscapes from a plane, but can also be used to perform a wide variety of tasks within your modeling repertoire.

In this BONUS - section we will place all elements into the scene to create our finalized composition.

If you would like to use the BONUS files created for this course use the links below:

RAR -  http://bit.ly/2aPKL7f

ZIP -  http://bit.ly/2avakhJ