How to Make an Asteroid in Maya

Why Do I Need to Know How to Make an Asteroid?
Just in case you ever want to recreate the legendary "Godzilla Goes to McDonald's" (or if you just want to make a space scene). You do you. This tutorial is for anyone who's interested in learning about Maya, or just confused about a few functions of it.

Just Follow These Steps
1.) Open Maya
2.) Create a cube

3.) Make it smoooooooth (Mesh>Smooth)













4.) Smoosh it in wherever (Surfaces>Sculpt Geometry Tool)

5.) Make it smoooooooth again

6.) Add a Lambert to it (hold down right button on mouse>Add Favorite Material>Lambert>maybe name it "asteroid")




















7.) Click the checker-lookin' button next to "color", choose file, then choose the stretched out asteroid picture up there at the top ↑.

8.) Lastly, add a bump map in the "asteroid" lambert attribute area where it says "bump map". Use the checker box next to it, and use the same stretched out asteroid picture up there. You can edit how deep the bumps go if you want. :>
























More Help

• Maya tutorial : How to create a rock in under 4 minutes in Maya
• Sculpt Geometry Tool overview

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ

How to Use the Puppet Tool

What is the Puppet Tool?

The "puppet tool" used in the program AfterEffects helps to make whatever you're animating come alive. This tool allows you to create a mesh on your character so that you can more fluidly animate it. I was too embarrassed to ask for help with it when my class was still frequently using AfterEffects, so it took me a long time before I actually learned what it was. This tutorial is for anyone who's interested in learning about AfterEffects and might be having trouble figuring out what to do.

What to Do

1. To start off, you need to select the Puppet Pin tool, which is in the upper left-hand corner of the screen.
2. After it's been selected, put as few pins on each separate layer of you character as you can, but don't put too few.
3. That last step was the easiest. Now, it's time for the hardest part. At the bottom of the screen is the animation timeline. On the left side is your layers, which includes your character. Under one of your character layers, choose Effects > Puppet > Mesh # > Deform > Puppet Pin #. Create a point in your timeline, then drag the time indicator to another point in the timeline and move a pinpoint on the screen. If you press play, you'll be able to see it move!

Just In Case You Need Some Pictures

Step 1: Put the pinpoints Bonus(?) Step: Add a Null Object to the
on the object. object you're animating if you want it to
move across the screen.

Step 2: Create a keyframe in Step 3: Move the pinpoint
one spot. into a different position &
create a new keyframe.
After you've made several keyframes, animate it!

Sorry it's bad, but I hope you get the point.
Helpful Websites (Maybe)

• Animating with Puppet tools
• After Effects: How to use the Puppet tool | lynda.com tutorial (this is kind of long, but I think it's kind of helpful)

- Brenna (っ• ◡•)っ