April 13, 2020
Model Shark for Dark Shark
Modeling in Maya 2019
Modeling a Shark – Pt 1
By: Dan Pejril
Summary
I am looking to convert my original Dark Shark small game project from a 2D game to a 3D game as I progress with it, so I am using this as an opportunity to practice using Maya as a 3D modeling software and the pipeline of migrating models from there into Unity, since I haven’t done either in a while. My main focus is the gameplay and designing the underlying game systems, so I do not need an amazing model for now. This will just be practice so I’m making a simple, low-poly shark just to act as a place holder for now, and I can always upgrade it and make it nicer later if I want.
The video tutorial I have linked is a simple tutorial for modeling a simple shark, so I am using it as a rough reference as I brush up on the basics of using Maya as well as helping me design the shark a bit. As I mentioned, I’m just looking for a simple blocky low poly shark for now, so I am not dealing with some of the finer details from the tutorial, and ignoring details such as smoothing.
Some of the techniques it has helped me brush up on so far are: adding edge loops, selecting/moving/scaling verts/faces/edges, and extrusion. This is after going through the first three parts of this modeling tutorial series. I have done all this before, but it has been a long time now so it was helpful just to have a bit of guidance to remember which techniques to use when.