During the summer holidays, I experimented with 3D modeling in Maya. Following the tutorial posted on the LSFM digibods facebook page.

 

Following this tutorial I managed to get part of a 3D scene created.

 

However, I ran in to issues when lighting my scene. The tutorial I followed used an older version of Maya than the one I had downloaded, and therefore the default render engine was different. This meant that when it came to lighting my scene and rendering out a still to see the outcome, all I was able to render was black, as the render engine I was using didn’t seem to pick up the light strength as strong enough to light my scene. This was extremely frustrating at the time, as I didn’t know what I was doing wrong and didn’t have a basic understanding of how the software worked to troubleshoot. I ended up giving up on the scene, as I couldn’t seem to progress any further with the tutorial. However, I want to come back to Maya and try and complete the tutorial.

 

From what I remember when using the software, I found simple modeling in Maya quite easy and intuitive, I didn’t like swapping between two different parts of the software in order to add texture to my models however. Also I had issues with selecting different parts of my scene, with invisible walls often getting in the way. But overall, seeing as Maya was the first 3D modeling software I tried out, I am quite happy with what I was able to achieve in 3 hours.

However, also looking back at this months later and trying to use Maya, its clear that what I learned about this software has not stuck with me. I can not remember much of anything when it comes to modeling within the software. I think this is due partly to me learning and following a tutorial within a short amount of space. When it comes to learning Da Vinci Resolve, Blender and Substance Painter I will make sure I will take it a lot more slowly than when I learnt Maya; making sure that I am solid on every step before I progress to the next one. I think this was a valuable lesson to learn and I’m glad I did it over the summer holidays and not during the semester.