How to Make Games With Maya
Using Maya to help create your video game is a great way to make 3D models for your game engine. The first step in any artistic endeavor is to sketch out your ideas. While you can just start creating models in Maya, it can save you a lot of time if you put your ideas to paper first. Then you will have to make a number of rough draft models to see which works best for your game. Finally, you need to render your models with appropriate textures before importing the models into the game code.
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Instructions
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Sketch out your ideas. Maya is a powerful animation software, but it is too complex to use for quick sketches. Put all your ideas on paper to see how they look and which of the ideas looks the best. Grid paper is the best for this kind of sketching.
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Double-click on your Maya icon to load the animation software. Click on "File" and then "New" to start a new project. Making a model for use in your video game in Maya will vary depending on what the model is. If it is a vehicle, then you need to use basic polygonal brushes to create a rough design. If you are building an organic model, then use one of the prebuilt skeletons to work off. Start with the most basic of shapes to establish where the joints are and ratio of this limb to that limb.
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Add detail by adding more complex shapes and by increasing the complexity of the existing shapes. Select the shape you want to modify and then distort it by grabbing the vertex points on the polygonal facings. Click and drag the polygon into its desired shape, then release the button. If attaching new polygons, then create the polygon separately, then drag to the point where you want it to touch the other polygon. Click "Attach" in the edit menu.
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Render the polygons with textures by selecting the polygon facing you want to change. Then select the color from the color gradient in the texture floating window. Create multiple layer of colors to give the texture a hue and gradient that looks more realistic.
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Import the character into your game engine and compile the code. The exact steps will depend on what language you are coding in. Run the game and make sure the model looks correct. Errors could be in the game engine and not in the model, so study any flaws carefully. When satisfied, perform a final compile.
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Tips & Warnings
Save often to avoid losing your work to a power loss.
