Create a Grand Piano in Maya Lessons 01-03

Introduction

Today we start a new series of tutorials focusing on a workflow for modeling a Grand Piano. The model will be fairly detailed, we will model the body(exterior) as well as the interior, strings, pins, dampers, hammers and guides. After we are done with the modeling part, we will apply different mental ray materials , set up lighting and rendering settings, and we will end it with a quick and simple turntable animation.

Tutorial brief

Because there's almost 6 hours of recorded material, I will post about 3 lesson twice a week (6 lessons per week) There are total of 39 lessons. Some are shorter , some are longer, so some weeks may have more than 6 lessons. The tutorials will be in a step by step format, with an image and text explanation. At the end of each lesson you will find a time-lapse video of the lesson. The videos aren't sped up too much, only 50% faster than real time, so you can see everything that's going on in the video. At the end of each tutorial, you will find a link to download  the videos in HQ .mp4, the scene files, and anything else that might be related to that days lessons.

The scene files are numbered 01-39. The scenes are saved at the end of the lesson, so for example you want to start with lesson 02, you will open scene 01.

Note: During the course of this tutorial, we will try to maintain all quad geometry, but there will be some pieces that we will have n-gons. The reason for this is because we know that this is a hard surface model, and that it will not have any deformations applied to it. Also on these pieces adding edges to fix the n-gons will take extra time, and wil add unnecessary polygons.

The final result

Step 01

Start by importing the piano_top.jpg image plane in the top view.

Step 02

Open the attribute editor for the image plane and enter around 0.3 for the Alpha Gain. This will make the image plane transparent and easier to work with.

Step 03

Move the image plane under the grid so that you can see the grid better. Enter a negative value for the Y axis.

Step 04

Create a poly plane in the red square on the image plane.

Step 05

Using the CV Curve tool(Create>CV Curve Tool) create a curve along the red line on the image plane, starting from the side with the poly plane. Remember that less point will make a smoother curve.

Step 06

When you are done creating the curve, edit the curve by moving the vertices to better follow the red line.

Step 07

On the poly plane, select the edge next to the curve, SHIFT select the curve and extrude it(Edit Mesh>Extrude).

Step 08

In the channel box, enter around 20 for divisions.

Step 09

Select the extruded mesh and delete its history.(Edit>Delete By Type>History Then delete the curve we used for extruding.

Step 10

Delete the edge we used for extruding. Select the edge and go to Edit Mesh>Delete Edge/Vertex. This will delete the edge and its vertices.

Step 11

Select the end vertices and snap them to the same grid line.

Step 12

Duplicate the extruded mesh(select the mesh and Ctrl+d), and hide the duplicate(select the mesh and Ctrl+h). We will need this mesh later again.

Step 13

Extrude the mesh up about 4 units.(I'm using Maya's default preferences)

Step 14

Using the Insert Edge Loop Tool(Edit Mesh>Insert Edge Loop Tool) insert 3 edge loops along the height of the mesh.

Step 15

Select the front lower two faces on both sides.

Step 16

Extrude them forward about one unit.

Step 17

Deselect the top faces and extrude the lower faces again about one-one and a half units.

Step 18

Extrude the top faces as well.

Step 19

In the side view move the vertices so that they form a curvature.

Step 20

Use smooth mesh preview (3 on the keyboard) to see how the mesh will look after smoothing. Insert edge loops to hold the thickness.

Step 21

Insert edge loops to hold the top and bottom.

 

 

Step 01

Change the piano_top.jpg image plane with the pianokeys.jpg image.

Step 02

Bring the image plane in front of the body of the piano.

Step 03

Create a poly cube the size of the white key, make the height the same as the body of the piano.

Step 04

Insert edge loops near the lines for the black keys.

Step 05

Delete the faces where the black keys will be placed.

Step 06

Using the Append to Polygon Tool(Edit Mesh>Append to Polygon Tool) and fill the deleted faces.

Step 07

Insert an edge loop near the top of the key(a little less than one unit)

Step 08

Extrude the two new front faces(the top two faces in the front)

Step 09

Scale them down and level the bottom.

Step 10

Because we manually added a few faces, you might see some darkening, which is normal. The darkening is because the face normals are at different angles.

Step 11

Select the mesh and go to Normals>Set Normal Angle(by default it should be 30) in the new window press apply and close. This will fix the discoloration.

Step 12

Select the mesh and bevel it(Edit Mesh>Bevel), this will bevel all the edges of the mesh.

Step 13

In the channel box, in the INPUTS under polyBevel, enter 4 for Segments. This will add more segments at the bevel, and with 4 segments in this case "all quad" geometry will be preserved.

Step 14

Duplicate the white key.

Step 15

Create a poly cube for the black key.

Step 16

Scale in the top face of the black key(both in X and Z).

Step 17

Bevel the edges, for Segments again enter 4, and lower the Offset to about 0.2.

Step 18

The next white key has recess on both sides. Insert an edge loop in the middle of the key, and delete the straight side.

Step 19

Mirror(Mesh>Mirror Geometry) the mesh in the -X direction. Check Merge with original, Merge vertices.

Step 20

After the mirroring you will notice that some vertices were accidentally merged between them self as well.

Step 21

In the channel box in the polyMirror inputs, enter 0.001 for the Merge Threshold. By making the threshold really small, only vertices that shared the exact same position will be merged.

Step 22

Move the vertices so that they conform to the shape of the key. You can delete the edge we used for mirroring. Repeat this process for all the keys.

Step 23

Duplicate the black keys, and tweak the shape of the black and white keys if necessary.

Step 24

The grand piano keyboard has a total of 88 keys. We need to add 3 keys on the left side, duplicate the keys we made so far another 6 times, and add one more key at the right side.

Step 25

Duplicate two white keys and one black. Place the black one between the two white keys, and tweak the two white keys for a better fit. Place these 3 keys at the left side.

Step 26

Duplicate another white key, and add a edge loop down the length. This time delete the side with the recess.

Step 27

Mirror the mesh in the +X direction. Delete the edges where the recess was. We don't need these any more.

Step 28

Move the key over another one and tweak the size so that it's the same as all the other white keys.

Step 29

Duplicate the first group of keys we made, another six times, and add the single white key at the left end.

Step 30

Group the keys(Ctrl+g) and make a duplicate of them in case you need to make some revisions later.

Step 31

Scale the keyboard so that it fits the body of the piano.

Step 32

Duplicate two white keys and add them on both sides of the keyboard. We will use these extra 4 keys, so that we can scale the keyboard better. On both sides of the keyboard there are pieces the keyboard rests on. They will be wide as two white keys.

Step 33

After adding the four extra keys scale the keyboard again. When you are satisfied with the scaling, delete the extra keys.

Step 01

Using the Split Polygon Tool(Edit Mesh>Split Polygon Tool) make a cut just before the curving starts(hold the shift key better control the Split Polygon Tool)

Step 02

Select the bottom faces from the beginning of the body to the edges we cut with the Split Polygon Tool.

Step 03

Extrude down the selected faces.

Step 04

Insert edge loops to hold down the shape.

Step 05

On the front and bottom as well.

Step 06

Don't forget the other side. Try to match the edge loop positions on both sides.

Step 07

In the side view, space out the vertices on the back end, so that they don't be too hard after smoothing.

Step 08

Move and space the vertices in the front to smooth out the hard edge we made.

Step 09

Create a poly cube the same size as the part we extruded now.

Step 10

Make the height about half of the extruded part.

Step 11

Tweak the cube for a better fit.

Step 12

Insert an edge loop down the middle.

Step 13

Bevel the selected edge. This will "split" the edge in two equally spaced edge loops.

Step 14

Extrude the new ring of faces.

Step 15

Bevel the edges of the extruded part. You can add about 3 segments.

Step 16

Bevel the corner edges as well.

Step 17

Lower the offset and increase the segments.

Step 18

Delete the new edges on the top and bottom, on all corners.

Step 19

Now bevel the top and bottom edges.

Step 20

You should have allot of hard edges after the beveling. Just set the Normal angle back to 30.(Normals>Set Normal Angle).

Step 21

If that doesn't give you a good result, select the mesh and soften the Normals(Normals>Soften Edge).

 

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