Maya Foundations: How to create photo realistic 3D models

Architectural elements detail of a skyscraper

Spring 2006 - Jean-Marc Gauthier - All Rights Reserved This tutorial shows how to create photo realistic 3d models from a digital image processed in Photoshop. You will also learn how to use Illustrator paths in Maya, texturing, basic lighting and rendering, how to apply textures and how to parent the building components.

Left view shows what can be your starting point, a digital picture of a skyscraper from the street level saved as a jpg in Photoshop. Right view shows a 3D model of the building with the original picture used as a texturing.

You can use also this tutorial to recreate smaller details or 3D objects from a 2d image. For example, the above illustrations show the same method applied to a detail of a window. The starting point is a digital picture of a window, saved as a jpg in Photoshop. Right view shows a 3D model of the window with the original picture is used as a texture.

part 1: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / preparation of template in Photoshop

From Left to Right, 1/ picture from street level 2/ elevation with perspective correction 3/ work path in Illustrator 4/ 3D model with lighting in Maya In Photoshop, open the digital picture. Select all.

Go to Image > Canvas size > Resize the canvas on the vertical axis. Go to Select > Select All > Select the image. Go to Edit > Transform > Skew > Recreate verticals and horizontals along the windows frames. Save a copy as building-texture.jpg

In Photoshop, create a new layer, select the windows with the selection rectangular tool + Shift. Use the Paint Bucket to fill the windows with one fill color, for example white. Select the background and paint with another fill color, for example gray. With the Magic Wand, select the walls between the windows. Please note that the selection process will affect the location of solids and void areas inside the 3D model. Selecting the walls will define the solids for the walls, with holes inside the windows. Go to Layers > Paths >select Make Work Path + Alt > choose Tolerance = 1 pixel. You have created a path inside the Photoshop document.

Lets save the Path to Illustrator, go to File > Export > Path to Illustrator, save as path.ai

part 2: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / Surfaces

Go to Maya, import Adobe Illustrator, your path shows up in blue in Mayas perspective window.

Lets create the walls Go to Surfaces > Planar. IMPORTANT: Go to Shading > Smooth Shaded in order to see the solid areas.

part 3: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / Maya Extrusions

Lets create the 3D window cells. Select the whole template from Illustrator. Go to Surfaces > Extrude, select Distance, Extrude Length = 0.2, Direction > Profile Normal

part 4: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / Textures

Lets apply textures. We will use the previous Photoshop image building-texture.jpg for texturing the wall of the elevation. Go to Windows > Rendering Editor > Hypershade

RMC on Lambert1 (Lamber1 was applied by default to the faade that you created) > select Graph Network.

Go to Create Maya Node > 2D Textures > select Projection > File

Go to Work Area, MMB and drag Projection icon on the lambert1 icon, select default a yellow arrow is created between Projection and lambert1.

LMC on file1 go to the Attribute Editor > file1 > Image Name Load the elevation correction image

Go to Work Area, LMC on file1 go to the Attribute Editor > file1, open building-texture.jpg

Select Interactive Placement and Fit to BBox in order to match the edges of the texture with the edges of the 3d model. IMPORTANT: Make sure to select Shading > Smooth Shade All > Hardware Texturing > High quality Rendering in order to avoid fuzzy textures in the 3D window

Save your project

part 5: modeling elements of a skyscraper / cleaning up history and parenting

Since buildings do not move much, this part may be optional. You may still need to move your building from the origin to a new a location. Two steps are required before using the move tool. Lets clean up the building history and create child-parent relationships between the building components.

Two important steps are needed before moving around your building project:
1/ Making the 3D model independent from the template. The 3D models created with surface planar and extrude retain history from the initial template. For example if you move a square of the template you will see a matching window cell moving on the faade. In Outliner, select all the building components, go to Edit > Delete by Type > History 2/ Parenting the all the building components including texture and window cells with the faade of the building. Lets parent each element with the faade of the building. Lets start with parenting the texture projection (Place3DTexture) with the model of the building elevation (PlanarTrimBuilding).

Go to Outliner, CTRL + select the Texture projection from the windows then select the PlanarTrimBuilding object > Press P Please note that Wireframe shading mode will speed up moving 3D objects in the 3D scene. Go to Shading > Wireframe. Using High quality rendering mode can be very SLOW.

Check the parenting tree structure under the trim-planar-building in Outliner.

Select + move PlanaTrimBuilding, you will notice that the texture projection and the building are moving together. Move on the Z axis in order to match the edge of the window cells

Go to Outliner, SHIFT + select the all the extrude surfaces of windows cells - then select the PlanarTrimBuilding object > Press P

Now, the window cells are parented with the building.

Optional: Lets create a background plane behind the windows. Reuse the template or If your template is not available, go to File > Import > Illustrator > Path.ai Keep the exterior edges of the template and delete the squares windows- inside the template. Go to Surface > Planar. - Repeat previous steps to apply building-texture.jpg as a texture to the surface. - Delete history - Parent the background plane with trim-planar-building. Select the background plane, SHIFT select the trimplanar building. You have now a building including from left to right, texture projection model + trim-planar-building + window cells + background plane behind the windows.