Not that easy beginning with Maya
Within the first couple of weeks of the course, I have been introduced to several completely new tools. One of them was Maya, a computer-based animation and modeling software. It’s an industry standard, thus quite pricey. Luckily, it’s free for students, after being verified. And this is where my problems started…I couldn’t get verified for over 3 days, even though my colleagues had their accounts up and running within just a few hours. Finally, after long hours of waiting and checking my student mailbox more than regularly, I received an e-mail (marked as spam and put in a junk folder) allowing me to finish the registration. Yay!
It came out, that it wasn’t the end of Maya issues I had. I tried to download and install it on my machine, sadly unsuccessfully. First, there was an error on the Autodesk website saying that they are experiencing some issues on their side and I should try again later. Next, when that was resolved, I couldn’t get through the full installation process. I’ve tried on three (!) different computers, changed system from Ubuntu which came out not to be supported by Maya developers, to a different Linux one – as I am a Linux user, to then find out that I need to have either Mac or Windows… Quite a disappointment, however as I really needed Maya, I went for Windows which I already had on a laptop.
We have Maya focused online lectures and labs twice a week, thus I was glad that finally, I was able to start working in Maya on my own machine. Especially that I was already a week behind with getting to know Maya and playing around with it in my own time. The good aspect of blended teaching mode is fact that all online classes are recorded. That means that I can go back to the parts I have troubles with and understand them better.
Our tutor had introduced us to Maya interface and then moved to modeling, which is quite a subject, packed with various tools and options. After getting briefly through them, we were working on a train model (in the photograph featuring this post). It was a good practical exercise, with poly modeling, vertices, edges and faces of the geometry being attached, smoothened or extruded. I know that there is a lot to learn for me and that the more I use Maya, the more fluent and comfortable I will become with it. Like with everything else, practice makes us better.