Exercise 1: Primitives

Problem

For this exercise, I needed to build a robot model in Maya using only the built in primitives objects in Maya (consisting of the cube, sphere, cylinder, torus, etc. models). Additionally, I was only allowed to scale, rotate, translate, and use the universal manipulator to these primitives. Because of this, I was unable to use any extrusions, or manipulate the vertices, edges, or faces in any other way.

Solution

I approached this problem by messing around with the primitives to see what options I had at first. Once I had a good idea of the tools at my disposal, I began to put pieces together in my head, and started drawing out a concept model on paper. I wanted the design to have a decent amount of asymmetry to keep the front and side profiles interesting. I also wanted to come up with creative ways to use many of the primitives so that they would makes sense for the robot. Once I had completed my concept and knew how to build each part of the robot, I began to work on the robot, beginning first with the torso, then building the legs, then the arms, then the head, and finally the back of the robot. While building the model, I made use of Maya’s duplicate special tool to save a bit of time in building the identical parts of the model, such as the other three legs and the second arm.

Pictures

Challenges

This exercise wasn’t too difficult, but I did end up having a number of issues getting access to Maya 2019, so I ended up completing this exercise in Maya 2018 (so if there were any new primitives that I missed, sorry!).

Beyond that, I thought it was a fun challenge to try to use every primitive, and I think I did a good job incorporating most of them in the design in an interesting way.