these are the shapes and what you create in 3d modeling, you can create youre own or use the ones that come ready made, this is more practical as you can shape and resise these to fit your needs anyway so its really just the simpler option. below are examples of these ready made shapes.
Cube
the cube is an extremely basic shape in maya but with the use of modelling, contorting and making several other cubes that can attach to the first shape.
Sphere
this is a more complex task for 3D modeling, a perfect sphere from which can be moulded wheels and hemispheres and all sorts of rounded objects
Cylinder
this can have a large assortment of uses, for exapmle the can be morphed and formed into useful shapes, an exapmle is when I made a spitfire and for the fusalodge I used a basic cylinder, then morphed it until it was the right shape.
N.U.R.B.S.
when you make lines and join them together rather than making and using basic shapes like the above, but this is much harder to do than what I just said above so often its best just to go with these shapes and conjoin and morph them to get the shape your after.
Sub Object
Vertices
vertices are basically the co-ordinates for the shape in the space you are drawing, complete zero for each one would put it in the dead center of the drawing feild, there are 3 co-ordinates, X, Y and Z, each one acounting for how far forward, how far to the side and how high it goes.
Lines
lines are straight and they connect the vertices together and hold it, without them there would be no shape at all, much like the steel supports of any house you see.
Curves
curves are also sort of lines only because they curve they are classified as diffeertn but you need there in order to make circles or spheres, if you look closely you could see that they actually made up off lots of straight lines at different angles.
Edges
edges are the lines at the end of the shape, say if there was a cube then the 12 lines that made up that shape would be the edges, and all the other lines running through the faces would just be lines
Polygons
polygones are the name for the faces in a conjoined manner, such as the amount of different faces that have been made when lines close off a shape and make a face.
Elements
basically this means things like fire, water, wind, ect, all sorts of things that can make a scenic background that you've created look more realistic if you had say a lake of water or some wind in the trees.
Faces
faces are the flat plains made when several lines or curves close off on themselves and form a shape, this is what fills that shape and makes it non-see-through. they can bend and contort to match the shape the lines and curves set out for it,
Meshes
Wire Frame
the wire frame is the outline of any 3d shape before you add the faces to fill in the grid, like the wire frame of a paper mache model or like the steel girders inside every building.
Two Dimentional
two dimention view is when after pressing the space bar you get a choice of four view, the one you start with, or directly above, directly from the front, or directly from the side, this makes them look 2d in the last 3, you can either have all four views together so you can see what you doing from all angles or you can hover the mouse over one and hit space again and that will become the main view.
Three Dimentional
three dimention view is the view you start with, it allows you to rotate and move the camera view around through use of the ALT button and the three buttons on the mouse, rotating, moving and zooming, this alows a clear view of what your doing but is rather difficult when trying to make a shape fit an outline, so then its best to use the four views method as shown above.
Co-ordinate Geometry
there are 3 co-ordinates when it comes to moving around in maya, X, Y and Z, each one is 'side to side', 'forward and backwards' and 'up and down'
Modeling Techniques
Box
box modeling is where you use basic shapes like boxs, rectangles and tringles to make a outline of your basic shape and then edit it, this is used often in art and design so it makes sence its usage would also spread to here as well.
Extrusion
Extrusion is the primary means of adding additional geometry to a mesh in Maya. It can be used on either faces or edges, and can be accessed at Mesh - Extrude, or by pressing the extrude icon in the polygon shelf at the top of the viewport, which looks like a 2x3 square grid with a box sitting on it.
Spline
splines are good for making things such as hair and wires and other such objects, just make a nurbs cirlce, make a nurbs curve for the path of your shape, then extrude the circle along the curve. You'll then be able to move the shape wherever you want by moving points on the original nurbs curve.
