Modeling A Knife

This tutorial will teach you how to model a knife quickly, using Maya.

Modeling

Step one - Go to mesh>create polygon tool.

Step two - Go to the side view and create one large face in the shape of the knife.

Step three - Go to edit mesh>cut face tool.

Step four - Add a verticle slice where the blade and handle meet.

Step five - With ther model selected, go to mesh>triangulate.

Step six - Go to mesh>quadrangulate.

Step seven - Right click and go to face mode on the model, then select the faces that make up the handle.

Step eight - Go to edit mesh>duplicate face. This will create a seperate object from those faces. We'll use it to extrude the handle later.

Step nine - Select the knife blade and go to edit mesh>extrude. Move the knife out to thicken it. You may need to change the camera angle for this.

Step ten - This is way too thick to be a knife blade. The reason we did this is because we need to delete all the faces on the side that we'll mirror the blade across on so we can merge the two pieces together. Select the faces and delete them.

Step eleven - Now move in your faces so they're about half the width of a knife blade.

Step twelve - The cutting edge is still too blunt, so select all the edges on the cutting edge.

Step thirteen - Move them up and in a bit to give it a sharp angle.

Step fourteen - Now we need to work on the handle. Go to window>outliner. Go to the polySurface1 group and select polySurface3. This is our handle.

Step fifteen - Go to edit mesh>extrude. Extrude it out to about half the thickness of the handle.

Step sixteen - Once again, we need to delete its faces on the side that we're going to mirror across on.

Step seventeen - Select your handle and go to mesh>mirror geometry... Open the options. Use the options in the image below.

Now click mirror.

Step eighteen - Select your knife blade and repeat the same mirror geometry.

Note: If there are any problems while mirroring the geometry, select the geometry and go to window>attributes editor, then go to the polyMirror tab and adjust the merge threshold. Something like 0.010 should work.

Step nineteen - We're going to use cylinders to fasten the blade to the handle. Go to create>polygonal primitives>cylinder. Scale and move it and rotate it 90 degrees.

Step twenty - Duplicate 2 more of them by going to edit>duplicate, or ctrl+d. Then move them.

Conclusion

Now you have a basic knife. You may want to apply some materials to it. The pins that hold the blade in place and the blade should have the same shader.

Good Luck.