Day 203

After finishing the egg, my book has a chapter devoted to the menus and interface of Mudbox. It's funny that this chapter exists. No Maya book would have something like this because the program is so huge. Mudbox though is small enough that the book can cover most of the key points without going on and on. So here's a post about the interface to give you an idea of what I have to work with. First off, above is a screenshot from Mudbox 2011 while below is from 2010. In the middle is the work area. In Maya, I can work with multiple viewpoints open at the same time but Mudbox only allows me to work with one, although I can switch to different ones while I'm working. On the top is the menu bar and below that are some tabs that will change the work space. Here I can switch to look at the UV map (the 3-D model unfolded) and I can paint on that too. Or I can switch to an interface to look at different images like reference photos or stamps and stencils. On the bottom left are the toolsets. Above you can see the painting tools and below are the sculpting tools. On the bottom right are menus to pick different stamps (above) and stencils. I can also change the material of the model there. Below I picked a chrome material. On the top right are lists where I can pick different objects in the scene (cameras, lights, models) or I can switch to look at the different sculpt or paint layers (below). Underneath that on the lower right side is the properties area. A list of properties I can change will appear for any tool or object I select. Then along the very bottom on the right is some extra info like how many polygons the model has. And finally on the bottom right corner I can set up a red box of flash to remind me to save after a designated amount of time. Nice touch.