The method used for this project is very handy for me now to know. The method teaches me to model from a simple low poly mesh, develop it into a model that would have a lot of poly’s, and then compress it down to a low poly again keeping the quality it did when it was high poly.

In order to do this, this requires the use of cross platforming. I used Maya and Mudbox for mine.

In Maya, I have to create a simple cube with a reasonable size. The reason I didn’t just use a cube in Mudbox is because it has too many unnecessary poly’s on it.

Once I created the cube, I exported it as an obj to then edit in Mudbox. In mudbox, I distorted and edited the shape to the shape I was looking for, which ended up being some form of dinosaur head.

Once the Head had been created, I then exported that into an obj where I would then proceed to lower the poly rate. To do that, I made the model live and used the quad draw tool to create larger polys over that, still maintaining the quality of the shape thanks to the quad draw tool sticking your drawn mesh to the shape.

To better the head, I exported it back into mudbox and masked a paint layer over it.

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This method is a great way to edit your meshes without both: handicapping yourself in one software and/or ruining you model.

My thoughts:

This was a fun little task to do bassically modelling something unique out of a mere cube and it wasn’t too troublesome a task.

In the mudbox side of things, it just requires creativity and the quality of time. I’d say as long as you have at least those two traits, you can create some really cool, freaky, or sinister pieces in mudbox.

In the Maya side of things, after the processes of mudbox, it takes a lot of patience purely because of the task of lowering the topology of the object. The quad draw tool method I used for this task, which is how I learnt to lower topology, didn’t give me much trouble on this task (did on others. See my Alien body post), regardless, it did take up a lot of my time, getting the vertices to form a face in the places I wanted them too and getting the vertices to even stick to the shape and not go inside or through them to the opposite side of the space given for the camera views. There are other methods to lower the topology of a shape however the best I would say I could do and can still do, to a degree I would say now, is using the quad draw method. Lowering topology is not for the feint-hearted or impatient, because I would say that this did give me quite a bit of stress and tested my patients on other tasks more so than this one again because I didn’t really have an alternative way of doing so.