Maya Foundations: How to create photo realistic 3D models
Architectural elements –detail of a skyscraper
Spring 2006 - Jean-Marc Gauthier - All Rights Reserved
This tutorial shows how to create photo realistic 3d models from a digital image processed in Photoshop.
You will also learn how to use Illustrator paths in Maya, texturing, basic lighting and rendering, how to apply
textures and how to parent the building components.
Left view shows what can be your starting point, a digital picture of a skyscraper from the street level saved
as a jpg in Photoshop. Right view shows a 3D model of the building with the original picture used as a
texturing.
You can use also this tutorial to recreate smaller details or 3D objects from a 2d image. For example, the
above illustrations show the same method applied to a detail of a window. The starting point is a
digital picture of a window, saved as a jpg in Photoshop. Right view shows a 3D model of the window with
the original picture is used as a texture.
part 1: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / preparation of template in Photoshop
From Left to Right, 1/ picture from street level 2/ elevation with perspective correction 3/ work path in
Illustrator 4/ 3D model with lighting in Maya
In Photoshop, open the digital picture. Select all.
Go to Image > Canvas size > Resize the canvas on
the vertical axis. Go to Select > Select All > Select the image. Go to Edit > Transform > Skew > Recreate
verticals and horizontals along the windows frames. Save a copy as building-texture.jpg
In Photoshop, create a new layer, select the windows with the selection rectangular tool + Shift. Use the
Paint Bucket to fill the windows with one fill color, for example white. Select the background and paint with
another fill color, for example gray.
With the Magic Wand, select the walls between the windows. Please note that the selection process will
affect the location of solids and void areas inside the 3D model. Selecting the walls will define the solids for
the walls, with holes inside the windows. Go to Layers > Paths >select Make Work Path + Alt > choose
Tolerance = 1 pixel. You have created a path inside the Photoshop document.
Let’s save the Path to Illustrator, go to File > Export > Path to Illustrator, save as path.ai
part 2: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / Surfaces
Go to Maya, import Adobe Illustrator, your path shows up in blue in Maya’s perspective window.
Let’s create the walls Go to Surfaces > Planar.
IMPORTANT: Go to Shading > Smooth Shaded in order to see the solid areas.
part 3: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / Maya Extrusions
Let’s create the 3D window cells. Select the whole template from Illustrator. Go to Surfaces > Extrude, select
Distance, Extrude Length = 0.2, Direction > Profile Normal
part 4: Modeling elements of a skyscraper / Textures
Let’s apply textures. We will use the previous Photoshop image building-texture.jpg for texturing the wall of
the elevation.
Go to Windows > Rendering Editor > Hypershade
RMC on Lambert1 (Lamber1 was applied by default to the façade that you created) > select Graph Network.
Go to Create Maya Node > 2D Textures > select Projection > File
Go to Work Area, MMB and drag “Projection” icon on the “lambert1” icon, select “default” a yellow arrow is
created between “Projection” and “lambert1”.
LMC on file1 go to the Attribute Editor > file1 > Image Name
Load the “elevation correction” image
Go to Work Area, LMC on “file1” go to the Attribute Editor > file1, open building-texture.jpg
Select Interactive Placement and Fit to BBox in order to match the edges of the texture with the edges of the
3d model.
IMPORTANT: Make sure to select Shading > Smooth Shade All > Hardware Texturing > High quality
Rendering in order to avoid fuzzy textures in the 3D window
Save your project
part 5: modeling elements of a skyscraper / cleaning up history and parenting
Since buildings do not move much, this part may be optional. You may still need to move
your building from the origin to a new a location. Two steps are required before using the
“move” tool. Let’s clean up the building history and create child-parent relationships
between the building components.
Two important steps are needed before moving around your building project:
1/ Making the 3D model independent from the template.
The 3D models created with surface planar and extrude retain history from the initial template. For example
if you move a square of the template you will see a matching window cell moving on the façade.
In Outliner, select all the building components, go to Edit > Delete by Type > History
2/ Parenting the all the building components including texture and window cells with the façade of
the building.
Let’s parent each element with the façade of the building. Let’s start with parenting the texture projection
(Place3DTexture) with the model of the building elevation (PlanarTrimBuilding).
Go to Outliner, CTRL + select the Texture projection from the windows then select the PlanarTrimBuilding
object > Press “P”
Please note that Wireframe shading mode will speed up moving 3D objects in the 3D scene. Go to
Shading > Wireframe. Using High quality rendering mode can be very SLOW.
Check the parenting tree structure under the trim-planar-building in Outliner.
Select + move PlanaTrimBuilding, you will notice that the texture projection and the building are moving
together. Move on the Z axis in order to match the edge of the window cells
Go to Outliner, SHIFT + select the all the extrude surfaces of windows cells - then select the
PlanarTrimBuilding object > Press “P”
Now, the window cells are parented with the building.
Optional:
Let’s create a background plane behind the windows. Reuse the template or If your template is not
available, go to File > Import > Illustrator > Path.ai
Keep the exterior edges of the template and delete the squares –windows- inside the template. Go to
Surface > Planar.
- Repeat previous steps to apply building-texture.jpg as a texture to the surface.
- Delete history
- Parent the background plane with trim-planar-building. Select the background plane, SHIFT select the trimplanar building. You have now a building including from left to right,
texture projection model + trim-planar-building + window cells + background plane behind the windows.