Modelling a Coca-Cola can in Maya

Firstly I made sure that I was in "Modelling" mode and then I pressed the space bar to get the 4 different perspective views up then presses space bar on the front view. I downloaded the cola can images from the person's youtube channel link who I watched do the tutorial. So then on the front view menu I clicked on "view", scrolled down to "Image Plane" and then clicked on "Import Image" and selected the image of the front of the cola can. Then I pressed space bar again and went on the grid view and changed the value for "Image Center Z" to -10 and changed the "Alpha gain" to 0.7. I went back to the front view and clicked on "Create" then scrolled down and clicked on "CV Curve Tool" then I drew an outline on one side of the image of the can, after finishing the outline I pressed enter then held right-click and click on "Control vertex" and then selected a point on the outline and pressed W to adjust it so that the outline was more in line with the can then held down right-click again and seleced "Object mode". I went back to the grid view and clicked on "Surfaces" and then clicked on the box next to "Revolve", the Revolve menu appeared and I changed the Output geometry to "Polygons" and I also changed the Tesselation method to "General" and Type to "Quads" and then I clicked "Apply" then closed the window.

Then on the left side under the INPUTS where it says "nurbsTesselate1" I changed the U nymber value to 30 and the V number to 25. I then double-clicked on the Move tool and changed the selection style from "Marquee" to "Drag". Next I held right-click and selected "Edge" and double clicked on one edge and held shift and double clicked on the rest of the edges. After that I clicked on "Edit Mesh" and scrolled down and clicked on "Delete Edge/Vertex". Then I clicked on one edge at the top of the mesh and I went onto "Mesh" and clicked on "Fill hole", I then held right-click and selected "Face" and clicked on the top surface of the can and I clicked on "Mesh and then clicked on "Poker face". I did the same with the bottom of the can.

Next I went back onto the front view and clicked on "Edit Mesh" and clicked on "Insert Edge Loop Tool" and then I clicked near the top to the can to insert it. I pressed Enter, selected an edge then pressed R to resize it. I went back on the grid view and held right-click and selected "Face" then I selected one face above where the Edge Loop line was and then held shift and double clicked on another face which then selected all of the faces above the Edge Loop line. Next I clicked on "Edit Mesh" then "Extrude" and pressed R to scale the top surface of the can. Then I selected the whole surface of the can and went onto "Edit Mesh" and "Extrude" again and pressed W to move the surface down and pressed R to scale it a bit more then pressed W again to move it further down. The process of modelling the surface of the can was a combination of extruding, resizing by pressing R and moving the surface by pressing W.

To get a better idea of what the top of the can looked like, I went onto the Top view and I clicked on "View" and then "Image Plane" and then clicked on "Import image" and imported an image of the top view of the can. I pressed R on the image to make it a bit smaller so that the image was the same size as the surface of my can. I pressed E to rotate the image so that it fit with the model. Then back on my grid view I selected all the faces on the surface of the can and then I pressed "Shift+." to grow the selected faces on the top. I went back onto the top view screen and went onto "Object mode" and shift-selected the background image and then I clicked on "Isolate select" so that I could only see the top of the can in the image. I then further scaled the image so that it fit the top of the can. Next I held right-click and selected "Vertex" so that I could edit the geometry of the can and move the vertices to fit with the contour of the lid of the can.

After adjusting the vertices I went back onto the grid view, selected "Face" and selected all the lid faces, then I went onto "Edite mesh" and clicked on "Extrude" and then scaled and moved the lid. Then I selected the edges on one side of the lid then I went onto "Edit mesh" and clicked on "Delete Edge/vertex" and I did the same with the other half of the edges by pressing G. I then went back onto Vertex mode and selected one vertex on one side and went onto "Edit mesh" then clicked on "Connect components" and connected the vertices on opposite ends of the lid, I sped up the process by pressing G. Next I went back onto "Edite mesh" and clicked on "Interactive Split Tool" and then I clicked on one edge then connected it to the other side of the lid and then pressed Enter. I then pressed G to repeat the process until most of the edges in the lid were connected and then I selected the faces on the top half of the lid to model.

Next I went onto "Edit mesh" then "Extrude" and pressed R to scale the selected faces. I then went back onto the Top view so that I could move some vertices. I clicked on "Isolate select" to isolate the area I wanted to work with, which was the opening part of the can and then I went onto Vertex mode and moved the vertices to match the opening of the can. I went back onto my grid view and selected the faces of the opening part of the can and used the Extrude tool to move it down a little bit and pressed R to scale it.

I then moved my attention to the bottom of the can. I selected all the faces and used the Extrude tool to scale it down a bit and pressed W to move it up a bit. I then clicked on "Normals" and then "Soften edge" to get a smooth visual look at my can. Next I clicked on "Create" and moused over "Polygon Primitives" and made sure "Interactive Creation" was disabled and then clicked on "Cube" to create a cube. I moved the cube up then went onto the Top view and isolated it using the "Isolate select" option and pressed R to scale it, so that it was the shape of a rectangle, then W to move it over the opener. Then I went back onto the grid view and flattened the cube more, then I selected all the faces going around the cube except for the ones on the side and then I went onto "Edit mesh" and clicked on "Connect Components". Then I selected the faces on the bottom and the top and I went onto "Edit mesh" again and deselected "Keep Faces Together" and then I clicked on "Extrude" and used the extrude manipulater (the yellow box in the middle) to scale the faces and pressed "Delete" to deleted the selected faces. Next I enabled "Keep Faces Together" in the "Edit mesh" menu and clicked on "Append to Polygon Tool" then I clicked on the bottom edge of the modelled rectangle and then an edge at the top of the rectangle which highlighted the middle part between the edges and I pressed Enter- this creates a face. I then pressed G to use the tool again and clicked on the top edge at the area to the left of what I previously selected and pressed enter again. I repeated the same process using the tool to create faces inside of the rectangle.

Then I pressed 3 for subdivision mode, which acts as a preview of what the rectangle is going to look like (the lid opener). I then selected Face mode and selected the faces inside one area of the lid and then I went onto the Top view and scaled the selected faces so that they matched the hole in the lid, I did the same with the other hole in the rectangle so that the subdivided recangle actually looked like the lid of the can. Next I selected the face on the inside of the front of the lid (the one inside the long hole) and used the Extrude tool and pressed W to move it out so that it filled part of the hole and I pressed R to scale it. Then I went onto "Edit mesh" and clicked on "Insert Edge Loop Tool" and inserted it into the middle of the edited face and pressed R to scale it more. I then scaled the face on the front end of the edited face and widened it and the I inserted anoth Edge Loop Tool and inserted it above the one I previously placed and I scaled the edited face to make it more round. Next I selected the faces of the edited face and clicked on "Connect Components" in the "Edit mesh" menu, then I went onto Edge mode and clicked on the edge at the front of the lid and moved it out more. Then I went onto Object mode and flattened the lid more and placed it down on the surface of the can.

I then went onto "Create" and moused over "Polygon Primitives" and then clicked on "Cylinder" and pressed W to move it up and R to scale it down, then under "polyCylinder1" on the right side of the screen I changed the value of the Subdivision Axis to 15 and went onto Top view to match the cylinder to the circle on the lid and then went back to the grid view. I then flattened the cylinder and moved down onto the lid. I then pressed 1 and clicked on "Mesh" and clicked on the box next to "Smooth" to get the menu up for the smoth options. I made sure under the "Preserve" area that nothing was selected and clicked on "Apply" then I pressed G to subdivide the lid and the cylinder. I then deleted some edges by pressing "Control+Delete" on the selected edges as the lid had a high polygon count and I also deleted some edge loops.

Before finally finishing my cola can model I selected the faces in front of the lid (the ones which act as the opening part of the lid) and used the Extrude tool and R to scale them in a little bit. Then I pressed "Shift+." and clicked on "Mesh" and then "Extract" and I went back into Object mode- this then seperated the area from the lid. So then I selected that piece and clicked on "Isolate select" (red arrow with a green box) and then I clicked on "Modify" then "Center Pivot", pressed W and then clicked on "Snap to points". Then I pressed Insert and moved the blue point back and clicked on "Isolate select" again and pressed W and then I pressed E which allowed me to move the area down as if the can is opened. Next I selected the lid and cylinder, went onto "Mesh" then click on "Combine" so that those 2 objects were now 1 object, then I clicked on "Edit" then moused over "Delete by type" and then click on "History" then pressed G on the lid object. Then I selected the area on front of the lid and the lid itself and pressed P, then I went onto "Modify" then "Center Pivot". This then allowed the lid to completely open. I then deleted the image plane.

My can was finally modelled and finished!