In this step 1 you will set up reference images for our mini cooper model.
This lesson is part 1 of our NURBS modeling project. In this lesson we shall learn how to set up reference images in the scene for our modeling task. But firstly as an essential step you need to create a new project for very good management of files, images, and all other necessary stuff. If you don’t know creating and setting a new project in Maya you should watch our video tutorial in basics chapter of this website,
First of all you need reference images of your car real model. If you don’t have your own reference, you may use following images as references. Simply right click on the images and save them in your hard drive. Keep in your mind that you have specific values of width and height in pixel units for each image reference. And keeping your aspect ratio is too much necessary for modeling some mechanical or some architectural object.
Top reference of Mini Cooper,
Side reference of Mini Cooper,
Front Reference of Mini Cooper,
Back Reference of Mini Cooper,
Let’s start our lesson,
Open a new file in your new project
Save your file without doing anything name it setting_up_references
Go to Window > Setting Preference > Preferences
In Preferences window select Settings from left panel
Change working Units to foot
Click Save
Note: Now you need to increase the far distance of perspective camera because you cannot see so far in this unit system.
Go to perspective camera menus > View > Select Camera
Open Attribute Editor by pressing Ctrl + A
Change Far Clip Plane to 1000
Create a Polygon Plane in Top View with width and height divisions 1
Change width of plane to 6 because you have 600 pixels in reference’s width and height to 2.82 because you have 282 pixels in reference’s height,
Press 5 for shaded mode,
Right click on the plane and select Assign New Material
Select Lambert
In Attribute Editor rename Lambert material name Top_Image_Plane
Click checker swatch in front of color slider,
Assign image Top image reference file to the plane
Don’t worry if you see result like image below,
To fix this open up Attribute Editor
In Attribute Editor click the tab Place2dtexture1
Change the value of V to 2.15 in Repeat UV
Move plane a little bit downwards from the grid
Select and duplicate Top Plane
Rotate duplicated copy 90 degree on X axis
Right click on second plane and assign new Side Image Reference file texture to it, don’t forget to rename new plane with Side_Image_Plane,
Change V value of Repeat UV to 2.15
Likewise create one image plane for front with appropriate height and width.
Change front image plane’s Rotate Frame angel to 90
Move the front image plane to front,
Match the Red lines of image planes as accurate as you can,
As well as accurate the lines from top of the planes,
Note: Now you need to switch on back face culling
Open up Attribute Editor > pPlaneShape4 > Mesh component Display > Backface Culling
Change the Backface Culling to Full from drop down list
Note: Now you will no more see back faces during working with CVs
Repeat all same procedure for back image plane and name it Back_Image_Plane,
Note: when you switch on the Backface Culling you don’t see the image from its back, thus you feel easy during creating and duplicating new CV curves.
First part of this video tutorial project is finished.
