Im using Maya 6.5 and am making a car (1990-1996 300zx TwinTurbo). I have the body panels pretty much done and have made most cuts for the different panels, but how can I give the panels thickness? I made the car with Polys so if I extrude (since the car is very curvy), it screws up everything. I just need to add thickness to the body, anyone have ideas or tutorial? Thanks
Hey tsefreeflow. You need to subdivide your mesh so that you have more verts to work with. You can't make something thick in 3d because everything is hollow and meshes are just flat sheets (like chicken wire). As I said you need to create more vertices to work with. Once you have those, you will push and pull the verts in all the axis until you have a smooth and appearantly volumetric mesh.
AWN isn't really the place for modeling questions. I suggest going to www.cgtalk.com, as the people there can help you better. For tutorials you can check out learningmaya.com and www.highend3d.com, there are many more tutorial sites but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head. Good luck! :)
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
i dont know MAYA. but i know MAX. So here is my suggestion.
Try to, if you can, extrude the edges of it back and inwards.
"who wouldn't want to make stuff for me? I'm awesome." -Bloo
Ok, this is my two cents worth. You need to make two sided polys, then make an extra cut along the boundary. That will give you more polys so you can stretch them to make the panel as thick as you wont.
Sorry for not saying this sooner, but you are doing a really nice job with your car.