This tutorial is geared for intermediate Maya users. If you’re into realistic characters then this tutorial a definite. We will start off this tutorial by using image planes of side and front views. The modeling techniques used will be shaping in nurbs, converting to polygons to add details, and then into sub’ds to define the final shapes.

When the modeling of our character is complete we move toward preparing our model for texturing. We do this by laying out the Uv’s for all the separate parts of the body to make them flat so we can get a clean UV snap-shot for our painted textures. Tools covered in the layout section include planar map, cylindrical map, and automatic map, as well as move and sew Uv’s. After the Uv’s are finished and your snap-shot is taken we jump into a paint program to start adding color and texture to our model.

You will learn how to use layers for different areas as well as how to stain up certain parts of the body like the head and shirt for a more natural look. The last section covers how to texture a few of the nurbs surfaces of our character, such as the hair, using Maya built-in shading networks.

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