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View Full Version : modeling stalactites for a cave tunnel...

chal7ds
02-13-2005, 04:30 PM
Hello All,

I am new to Maya, just purchased unlimited 6. I am going to be making an animation (eventually) where the user will fly through a small tunnel of a cave with stalactites on the floor and ceiling and chains will be swinging back and forth with lightbulbs on the end of them flickering on and off.

I need to start modeling the stalactites to start off I guess. So, where do I start? I mean, obviously, I am going to need to use a cone primitive..but what kind? and how do I manipulate the cone's faces or points to make it sharp in places and bent, like real stalactites? Also, eventually I'll need to add texture and lighting to make it look like real cave stalactites.

I'm not even worrying about the chains and lighbulbs right now.

If anyone can help me with ANY INFO to get a jump start on this...I would love to hear it!

thanks..
Ibah
02-13-2005, 05:47 PM
looks up some reference...

i would start with doing the floor, is it flat, or bumpy, does it have craters.. streams of water etc.. water.. goes into the rock a little etc.. so make the floow, you could just make some stalactites by going from a box,, its best, when smoothed.. you want some detail in them , so dont do cones, they will just look fake.. make a couple of them 6 maybe, scale them bigger smaller. copy them lots, place them in your seen, model them in there etc.

just throw this when you get started in the wip section, people can help you out lots better when you started
chal7ds
02-13-2005, 09:36 PM
Okay..bear with me...i'm probably doing a gazillion and a half things wrong here..but remember, this IS my FIRST model file i've ever done..

download my attachment to check out what i've done so far...

What I've created so far are a bunch of NURBS basic cone shapes to 'resemble' cave stalactites...and then i put 4 'planes', or cave walls eventually i hope that surround the soon-to-be cave tunnel.

Now, I've gotten to a point where i'm kind've stuck. The walls need to be surfaced somehow to look more 'cave-like', and more bumpy. After that is done, somehow i need to unify all the cones including the walls and then add a texture and lighting to give it a realistic cave appearance. How the heck do I do this? Remember, i'm new..so i'll need explicit instructions on how to go about doing this.

I tried finding some reference materials, but nothing got specific in the books i checked out at the library about applying rock textures, granite, etc..

After all the texturing, lighting, shadows and everything is done..I will need to vector render this because it is going to a flash file after this.

IF anyone out there feels like helping out a very inexperienced and NEW maya user...i would really appreciate any help i can get! that's why i put my file..you can even do some things to it as an example so i can learn if you are like me and have a lot of time on your hands. lol.

thanx all...
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02-13-2006, 10:00 PM
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