Giving everything a shot-- skinning?

[Unconscious]

Well; I figured modelling wasn't the life for me.. I can't get my head round the millions of toolbars / buttons that is Maya.

It's more button-finding than it is modelling, hehe. I must have spent 30 minutes finding buttons, and had around 5 minutes actual modelling.. and I came up with a glitchy flat sheet. Heh.


So i thought maybe I might give skinning a try-- but I have a few questions.


Can someone explain how skinning actually works?
Reccomended programs?
5 Golden Rules, so to speak?
Resource sites? I can't learn without a tutorial or something.


And any other information that might be good for someone who is interested.

PS: I know ChiQ is into skinning, and stuff; so i'd quite fancy it if she made a post here too.

[Boone]

A while back I tackled Maya with a very dependable book by my side. Its dirt cheap and will cut to the chase. "Maya for windows & MacIntosh" by Danny Riddell.

I recommend this book to everyone: It will not teach you anything advanced or go into any advanced features, but work through the whole book in a week(do two chapters a night) and you'll know enough to move on with confidence.

Best of luck.

[Unconscious]

A while back I tackled Maya with a very dependable book by my side. Its dirt cheap and will cut to the chase. "Maya for windows & MacIntosh" by Danny Riddell.

I recommend this book to everyone: It will not teach you anything advanced or go into any advanced features, but work through the whole book in a week(do two chapters a night) and you'll know enough to move on with confidence.

Best of luck.

I'll take that into account, but my copy of Maya seems to be 'different' from all these books. Haha; it asks me to go onto a menu that I can't find.

I'm not very artistic when it comes to 3d objects, anywho... Hell; I can't even draw a cube correctly.

[Rizimar]

Well; I figured modelling wasn't the life for me.. I can't get my head round the millions of toolbars / buttons that is Maya.

It's more button-finding than it is modelling, hehe. I must have spent 30 minutes finding buttons, and had around 5 minutes actual modelling.. and I came up with a glitchy flat sheet. Heh.

It takes time to learn anything when you're new to it. Took me months to figure out most of what I use to track music, for example, but now that I know my way around it, I can work with it easily.

[Unconscious]

Well; I figured modelling wasn't the life for me.. I can't get my head round the millions of toolbars / buttons that is Maya.

It's more button-finding than it is modelling, hehe. I must have spent 30 minutes finding buttons, and had around 5 minutes actual modelling.. and I came up with a glitchy flat sheet. Heh.

It takes time to learn anything when you're new to it. Took me months to figure out most of what I use to track music, for example, but now that I know my way around it, I can work with it easily.

Yeah; i know.. but I can't expect to get started on learning about skinning if I can't find a resource website to learn from.

[Bad Sector]

Checkout http://www.cgsociety.org/, it covers lots of stuff.

[Rizimar]

Well; I figured modelling wasn't the life for me.. I can't get my head round the millions of toolbars / buttons that is Maya.

It's more button-finding than it is modelling, hehe. I must have spent 30 minutes finding buttons, and had around 5 minutes actual modelling.. and I came up with a glitchy flat sheet. Heh.

It takes time to learn anything when you're new to it. Took me months to figure out most of what I use to track music, for example, but now that I know my way around it, I can work with it easily.

Yeah; i know.. but I can't expect to get started on learning about skinning if I can't find a resource website to learn from.

The program doesn't have a help file or website of its own?

[Unconscious]

Well; I figured modelling wasn't the life for me.. I can't get my head round the millions of toolbars / buttons that is Maya.

It's more button-finding than it is modelling, hehe. I must have spent 30 minutes finding buttons, and had around 5 minutes actual modelling.. and I came up with a glitchy flat sheet. Heh.

It takes time to learn anything when you're new to it. Took me months to figure out most of what I use to track music, for example, but now that I know my way around it, I can work with it easily.

Yeah; i know.. but I can't expect to get started on learning about skinning if I can't find a resource website to learn from.

The program doesn't have a help file or website of its own?

I have Maya, but that's, to be quite blunt, messy, and there are no tutorials on skinning.

The sort of thing I want to be able to do, is say open up a skin file of say... Doom guy, in Doom 3, and completely rework it. I also want to understand how it works, the layout of a skin, and all of that.

[Boone]

Well, mate, what version of Maya are you running on? 5.0? 6.5? Is it for the PC or MAC? 

[Unconscious]

Well, mate, what version of Maya are you running on? 5.0? 6.5? Is it for the PC or MAC? 

8.0, for the PC.

[CHRiTTeR]

Maybe u should try 3dstudio max. I find its user interface more userfriendly

[Bad Sector]

Heh, old thread .

I find Blender 2.5's interface more user friendly than max's .

Although max is more mouse oriented. And more modal, which can be a bad or good thing, depending on how you work.

[Unconscious]

I am ashamed to look back on some of these posts, I really am.

When I get around to do any modelling - I seem to use a combination of Blender and 3DS Max.