So, let us start by making the visor, the bent perforated holes cage. Because we do not have the measures and the exact radius and length of the shapes we have to guess. Had we had the helmet blueprint or the object itself at hand we could have made the exact helmet as it really looks, but now we have to guess the dimensions. Anyway, for us the method is important . Once we get the method we could apply the exact distances wherever we find them. One point I should mention here regarding the units. I use the centimeter unit scale throughout this tutorial. So in my Preferences Settings I have this: Now observe and contemplate the above reference image for a moment ; try to visualize it from front , the front view: that's the key point in making the visor. It is a half circle , may be a little more than half , right? Let's go and make it. STEP 1: 1-1: In front view near the grid origin, draw a circular arc using grids for distances and snap to grid for accuracy. Choose Three Point Circular Arc and hold down the X key on your keyboard to activate snap to grid. Make the following arc (in reality a half-circle) as in fig01 . The arc sections are set to 4. Note the 3 points that you should snap to grid are circled in red. Notice that 20 horizontal grid subdividions and 10 vertical grid subdivisions are used -as distances- to form the arc or half-circle. You can download the file Arc-start.zip. All Maya files in Part 1 are Maya 6 or 6.0.1 files. fig01 1-2: Choose the arc and in Edit Curves –Offset Curve , first reset then put the Offset Distance to 0.6 and Apply. You can rename the first arc outerarc, the second innerarc. See fig02. Then select both arcs and press Edit –Delete by Type – History. 1-3: Using snap to grid draw the following 4 straight lines -2 horizontal and 2 vertical- as in fig02. These lines will be cut and trimmed soon, so don't worry if they cross the two arcs. Note that the bottom horizontal line should nearly cross (or just touch) the outerarc. Move it up a bit to cross it if it doesn't. fig02 1-4: Create 2 circles, anywhere in the front view, first with a radius of 0.7, second with 0.52 and move them up somewhere in the top near the intersection of the right vertical line and the innerarc, see fig03. These circles do not need to be exact tangents to the arc or the vertical line, but it is good if you make them as much close to the lines as possible. See fig03b. fig03 fig03b 1-5: Select the 2 circles, open Edit –Duplicate Options , first reset, then change the Translate Y to -1.4 and the number of Copies to 5 and Apply; see fig04. As you notice , the top horizontal line should be moved down a bit to come just below the bottom circle (note the yellow arrow in fig04); either do that, or change the line's Translate Y in the channel box to -0.2. fig04 1-6: We want to duplicate again, choose the column of circles you've just made, open the Duplicate Options, first reset, and don't forget to do that, then change Translate X to 1.4 and Number of Copies to 5 (See fig05) and Apply. 1-7: Look at fig05, you see 3 small yellow arrows pointing to 3 curves. Select the curves( make sure you do not select any other curve, especially the outerarc should not be selected) plus All the circles you have just created and Press Edit Curves –Cut Curve.   fig05 1-8: Now Select the full or part-circles lying out of the former innerarc -fig06- and delete them. (innerarc is shattered after the cut and exists no more) You have just trimmed away the unwanted circle parcels. Neat! fig06 1-9: Now we want to create the visor surface; select the outerarc and the botttom horizontal line crossing it (check back in fig02) and press Surfaces –Planar. Name the surface visor. Download file Visor1.zip and check it. After opening the file you should make the visor_la layer visible in the channel box if you want to see the visor surface. Read step 1-11 for info on layers. 1-10: Select the surface and all other lines in the scene and press Edit –Delete by Type – History. If you don't delete history now you will loose your visor surface in the following steps. 1-11: For your convenience, you can create 2 layers in the channel box and name one visor-la , the other Lines_la . See fig07. Add the planar surface you have just created to visor_la layer and add all your curves and lines to the Lines_la layer. turn off the visibility for the visor_la layer; we don't want to see the surface for the moment. Note on Layers: We will create other layers as we proceed. See fig07b. This act is very useful in modeling because as curves and surfaces are created the scene becomes messy; the layers help us hiding or templating objects quickly. For each group of related surfaces you can make a layer and for their corresponding lines you can create another layer with a similar name so that you know in which layer are located the lines belonging to each group of surfaces. Or you can just create one layer for all curves and place them all there. You can also delete the curves once you don't need them anymore. fig07 fig07b STEP 2: In this step we will delete som extra lines and pave the way for making the perforated cage surface. 2-1: Zoom in to the top mid of the outerarc, see fig08, right click and choose Edit Point, select the top mid poind and Press Edit Curves –Detach Curves. The outerarc is now divided into 2 parts. fig08 2-2: Always in front view select all useless lines and curves (about 12 curves) and delete them, they are highlighted in white in fig 09 . Or hide them in Lines_la layer if you want. fig09 2-3: In front view, Select all the remaining circles and lines (see fig10) then press CTL+G to group them and rename it g01 or whatever you want. Look at fig10 to get the idea: once having the group selected press the INSERT key (to activate the group pivot center) and while holding down the X key (snap to grid) move the pivot to a grid point in the coordinate Y axis (the vertical line which splits our original arcs in two halves) and press again INSERT . Then open the Duplicate Options box, reset then change the Scale X to -1 and Apply. 2-4: Download the file Visor2.zip and check to see whether I am in the right track. fig10 STEP 3: Now starts the thrilling part of the story! In this step we want to project the circles on the planar visor surface and then trim the unwanted parts. Ready? 3-1: Unhide the visor surface, select it and in the perspective view, move it back away a little from the curves in the z axis. Do this to be convenient in the next step. 3-2: Select everything in the scene and go to the front view and stay there. Press Edit NURBS –Project Curve On Surface and let Maya process a bit . All circles are projected on your visor surface and you just need to trim them. Before that just select everything again and delete history; then hide the unprojected curves, just turn off their layer. 3-3: This action is optional: press Display –UI Elements –Hide UI Elements to work in full screen , but do as you like. Select the visor and Edit NURBS : Trim Tool , and work in front view preferably. Start carefully selecting the surface-parts which you want to remain after your trimming ends. See fig11. The blue squares are imprinted as you press the areas you want to keep. You should work very slowly , otherwise you have to untrim the surface and redo it. Even one mistake and you have to restart! I had to do it thrice before I succeeded. At the end press enter and wait. If you get the correct trimming then you have passed the tricky step. fig11 3-4: Rebuild the visor surface you have just made. Edit NURBS – Rebuild Surfaces Options, reset, and for the number of UV spans put sth like 14,15. It might be better to try a higher rebuild like 25,24 if your graphic card can handle it. With a higher number of spans your visor surface gets smoother. See fig12. Download file Visor3.zip and check it.   fig12 Warning: This surface is heavily trimmed and for some reason it requires high processing from your system's CPU or graphic card. It is possible that while you are working in the Smooth Shade All Shading you might encounter slow processing. If so switch to the Wireframe Shading temporarily. However, with a good graphic card you should not have any problem. 3-5: If you render your work you should see sth like: fig12 above . Now check your visor surface and see if it is all right. As I checked mine-the first time I did it- it was well except at 2 symmetrical points at the right and left bottom edges of the surf, where I had to right click the visor, choose Control Vertex and move a vertex a bit to the right or left, but that was minor. Also, I found some small projected curves still remaining on the surface. I had to delete them. Examine your surface and see whether it needs any amendment. 3-6: Unhide everything , select all and delete history. You can get rid of all remaining curves and circles. Delete or hide them. STEP 4: You want to apply 2 Bend deformers to the visor surf to make it bent like the reference image. 4-1: Select your visor press F2 to make the Animation Menu Set active, press Deform –Create Nonlinear –Bend . A Bend deformer is applied to the visor, called bend1. 4-2: Change The bend1Handle Rotate Z to 90 and also the Rotate Y to 90 in the channel box then look for the INPUTS for bend1 in the channel box and click it, you can now see Curvature, play with its amount to achieve the desired bending for your helmet. See fig13. I ended up with 1.5 for its amount but might come up with better bendings than I did if you try more. fig13 4-3: Apply another Bend called bend2, change its Rotate Y to 90 and choose an amount like 0.6 for its curvature to bend it in the vertical axis. See fig14. fig14 4-4: Download the file Visor-Bent.zip and check again my work. 4-5: Once you finish the bendings, select the visor and delete history. The bend deformers disappear for good. 4-6: Play with the default scaling and rotate manipulators to improve your visor. See fig15. fig15 STEP 5: Look closely at the reference image, at the center of the visor, you will see a vertical surface bulging out of it. fig16. Right? We are going to make that surface now. fig16 5-1: Right click your visor surface and choose isoparm then select the middle isoparm fig17. Press Edit Curves --Offset --Offset Curve On Surface Options and change the Offset Distance to -0.25 or -0.3 and Apply. You have just offseted that middle isoparm on your visor surface. fig17 5-2: Do the same thing with the mid isoparm but this time put the Offset Distance to 0.25 or 0.3. You have now 2 curves on both sides of the middle isoparm See fig18. fig18 5-3: Select both curves and press Edit Curves --Duplicate Surface Curves. Two other curves are created excatly over the 2 previous ones, but these 2 are independent of the visor surface. 5-4: Press Modify --Center Pivot and in side view move the 2 new curves a little away from the visor surface, as in fig19. 5-5: Select all 4 curves you have just made and Loft them. then press Rebuild Surfaces Options and set the Number of U,V spans to 20,7 to make the surface smoother. 5-6: Select everything and delete history; get rid of the lines. Add the new mid surface to the visor_la layer. See fig20. fig19 fig20   STEP 6: The visor is almost done. Yet it is not finished. One might say: “give the visor some thickness, extrude it, as of now it's looking flat. Other than that, it looks fine.” That's right , our visor needs thickness, let's go and do that. 6-1: Select the visor surface and press Edit NURBS –Offset Surfaces Options and change the Offset Distance to -0.1 and Apply. See fig21. You have now 2 surfaces with a distance of 0.1 apart from each other. fig21 6-2: Right click the first visor surface and choose Trim Edge then select the outer arc-form edge, hold down the SHIFT key and do the same with the other surface, fig22. Press Surfaces –Loft to fill in the gap between the 2 isoparms with a new surface. Rebuild the new thin surface with U,V spans as 60,4. 6-3: Do the same with the bottom isoparms of the 2 visor surfaces and loft them again. See fig23. Rebuild the new thin surface with U,V spans of 35,4. fig22 fig23 We have just filled in the outer gaps but we still have works to do. The inner gaps need to be filled now. 6-4: Zoom in to the circles and start choosing pairs of trim edges and loft them. See fig24, fig25, fig26 ,fig27 and fig28. You are filling in the gaps between the 2 visor sufaces. That takes time and requires attention . Look again at fig24. After lofting those 2 circles and the other 2 full circles you could rebuild them with U,V spans of 35,3 to make them smooth, but you can change that number if you want. First do all full circles and rebuild them, one by one. Remeber, Just do one half of the visor for now. Then start the half-circle edges, choose them by pair as in fig25 and loft them then rebuild them with U,V spans 18,3. You should fill all the gaps. fig24 fig25 fig26 fig27 fig28 For small pieces such as fig26 rebuild the surface witth U,V spans 7,3. For quartet-circles such as in fig27 rebuild with 9,3. For surfaces you make on the edge like in fig28 choose a V span of 4 instead of 3 for rebuild. If you check my work as you download it soon you can see how I have rebuilt each surface. But as I have said before you can vary the number of U,V spans. You can template the visor in the layer it is if you want to check what new surfaces you have created so far. See fig29. Then you have to untemplate and continue working. fig29 You don't have to do both sides. Just one side is enough. 6-5: Once you are done with half of the visor , select all new surfaces – make sure you don't select any other surface- delete history then group them and Modify –Center Pivot. 6-6: Press INSERT and in front view place the group pivot on the vertical origin axis, fig30 . Duplicate it having set Scale X to -1. Now you have both sides of the visor surfaces filled in with new small surfaces, see fig31 below. The gaps are all filled.   fig30 fig31 6-7: Download Thickness.rar file and see the inside thickness surfaces I made. If you render your visor you see something like fig32, fig33. The visor is now complete. fig32 fig33 In Part 2 we are going to make the other main surfaces for the helmet. Please, let me know if you have any comments about Part 1. In total there are 6 files for download throughout Part1: Arc-start.zip Visor1.zip Visor2.zip Visor3.zip Visor-Bent.zip Thickness.rar   Copyright ©2004 www.studioexistence.com  page up