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If I'm stuck in a rut or only privileged with a brief amount of time or unsatisfactory environment to begin a new project, I sometimes just simply produce generic backgrounds that I can use for future projects. I might use Photoshop to scribble some random colors and then apply a Gaussian blue to it, I might generate various tile patterns in Tile Studio, or I might create integrations of both. Here is an example of me creating a generic background using Alias Maya animation software. However, this is really more so an experiment in boolean operations and render materials.

Boolean operations in Maya are, for me, comparable to AutoCAD's solid modeling operations. In AutoCAD solid modeling, users can create complex solid geometry by selecting multiple geometric entities and choosing whether to combine them, subtract from them, or include only where they intersect. After I've learned more about constructing polylines and got better proficient in AutoCAD, I've learned to better appreciate the solid modeling functions of AutoCAD more. Maya, however, is a little more tricky, and it has been my disappointment that the boolean functions of Maya do not work 100% of the time I want them to or expect them to. And that's the kicker, because Alias Maya is now owned by Autodesk, so it leaves to wonder why one software cannot perform an operation as well as another software by the same company.

The frame of the objects you see were produced using Maya's boolean operations. Primitive NURBS spheres and cylinders were created to make up the basic shapes of the frame, and further spheres were produced to "subtract" from the corner spheres, creating the concave indentations that you see. The center sphere is again another NURBS sphere.

If this drawing is in anyways likable, I feel Maya is more so to thank than me for its texture rendering capabilities. The two materials I created from scratch were the Phong textures used on the frames and spheres. I find it very nice how it looks to create reflective materials on spherical shapes. However, I am further impressed by the ocean texture that Maya provided. I created a NURBS plane and increased its scale to a large enough degree so that it would appears enough like a horizon line to the human eye. However, in the future, I think I might rather use a large scale hemisphere instead since it is a sphere that we live on. I don't know; maybe that's being too obsessive. Plus, I don't know how well that texture would render on a spherical object.

I didn't toy with backgrounds as of yet because I am not sure if a background would appear rendered on a spherical object and I didn't know where to get any good quality public domain backgrounds. So I figure black works for now. The render time was probably approximately three minutes for that one image.

I think I will use this background for the puzzle game I am reworking right now, much in the same way they had computer drawing background images of Moscow for those old Tetris games. Hmm, I pity Alexey Pajitnov.

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