Best way to make dice

# 1 15-07-2015 , 03:10 AM

Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2014

Posts: 9

Hi there,

Still pretty new to Maya and I'm trying to figure out the best way to create a simple clear plastic die. As you can see, I created a polycube, added some bevel, and then used a Boolean difference to create the circular indents (I might have created some ngons, but I'm hoping they're small enough not to cause any problems, or is that naive?)

So while this sort of works, I'd like to add a flat white color to the indents. What's the best way to do this?

Thanks in advance.

Avram

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# 2 15-07-2015 , 03:13 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

You can select certain faces and apply a new material to them. That's the simplest way, though there are more sophisticated methods (layered shaders) that might be more robust.
As for the ngons, those are not ideal, but as you are a new user, I would say carry on and keep exploring and don't get bogged down with elegant geometry. I would focus more on getting the shapes just right. Currently I feel that the dots are closer together than in a typical real die.

-stwert

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# 3 15-07-2015 , 04:15 PM

Registered User
Join Date: Dec 2014

Posts: 9

Thank you Stwert. Selecting individual faces works fine. I'll reposition the dots so that they're a little more realistic - I threw this together quickly so that I'd have sometime to show! Will look too at Layered Shaders, though I seem to recall they were tricky to implement (a quick Google search shows plenty of tutorial videos, so I'll explore those again).

Regarding making the indented dots, I had tried to use make a NURBS cube Live (the little magnet icon) so that I could draw a NURBS circle and pull it down, but couldn't get it to work. Is that a generally better way to achieve this?

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# 4 15-07-2015 , 04:29 PM

EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005

Location: Toronto

Posts: 3,374

When using the make live command, you probably want to make the poly cube live, and then draw a curve on the cube's surface. If you turn on interactive creation for a NURBS circle, it appears you can draw it on the surface, though it seems to snap to face centers or something, it's a bit strange actually.