Game Character Development with Maya

Kila is wearing shoes, and most of the time her shoes will be simple shapes. For the purposes of this discussion, however, we will explore the possibilities of bare feet.

I have in my Morgue various versions of feet, just as I do hands. Figure 3.100 shows some of these choices, which are quite basic. As you look from the left to the right, you can see how I have duplicated and reduced the higher-resolution foot to create the next in the line. So they start at 140 polygons and end with just 25.

Figure 3.100. Bare feet, at various resolutions

In this section, we will see how to create the higher-resolution foot. Then, if we need to, we can reduce it. Once we have our bare foot created, a few simple steps will transform it into Kila's athletic shoe. Let's start with a new scene.

1.

There are 10 subdivisions around the axis of our leg, so let's keep that amount for the foot. Create a new cylinder with Subdivisions Around Axis set to 10 and Subdivisions Along Height at 3.

2.

Switch to the side view. As demonstrated in Figure 3.101, select the faces at the front and extrude them, setting the number of Divisions to 4.

Figure 3.101. Extrude the faces out of the front of the cylinder.

3.

Scale the extrusion down the Y axis and move it down to line up with the base of the cylinder. The basic foot shape may be a little high, as it is on the far right in Figure 3.101, so scale the entire mesh down slightly.

4.

Still in the side view, start to adjust the vertices as shown in Figure 3.102, to get a betterdefined foot shape.

Figure 3.102. Adjust the shape of the foot in the side view.

5.

Switch to the perspective view and make the same adjustments. Try to sculpt the mesh, transforming the shape until it resembles a foot (Figure 3.103).

Figure 3.103. Work on the foot in the perspective view.

The general shape of the mesh now represents a foot, time for a quick tidy-up:

1.

First remove the faces from the top of the foot, the top cap of the original cylinder.

2.

Next, look at the bottom of the foot (Figure 3.104). It's a bit of a mess, so spend some time cleaning it up a little. Snap the vertices on the inner sole to the outer ring and weld them, until the sole resembles the one on the right in Figure 3.104.

Figure 3.104. Tidy up the bottom of the foot.

3.

A key part of the foot is the ankle, and we will add this next. Following Figure 3.105, split the faces, carving in a general outline for the ankle. Do this on both sides of the foot.

Figure 3.105. Cut the outline for the ankle into the mesh.

4.

Finally, pull the ankles out slightly so they are more pronounced (Figure 3.106). Remember that the outer ankle joint is lower than the inner one.

Figure 3.106. The improved foot model

Hopefully, the material in this section will have given you a base to build upon. For our purposes, we just need to alter this version of the foot slightly until it looks more like Kila's shoe; you can see the result in Figure 3.107.

Figure 3.107. Alter the shape of the foot to suggest an athletic shoe, so we can use it on Kila.

Delete the history on the foot and save it as Kila_Foot.mb.

NOTE

You can go on from here, as you wish, to add more details to the footindividual toes, for instance. Simply divide the front of the foot into five segments, separating them to create the toes.

Attaching the Foot to the Model

Load the file created earlier, Kila_WithHands.mb. We will now import the foot into this scene. As you did with the hand, scale and manipulate the foot until it is in the correct position (Figure 3.108, left).

Figure 3.108. Position the foot and adjust her trousers to fit it.

Before saving this file and ending this chapter, alter the bottom of Kila's trousers to fit the new foot (Figure 3.108, right). Then, as always, delete the history, and save the scenethis time as Kila_WithFeet.mb.

Now when you mirror the geometry Kila will have both feet.

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