Thus concludes my introduction to Maya. I hope you followed it without too much difficulty. In particular, I hope the UVs section wasn't that nightmarish. Some of Maya's features can be tricky to explain but nonetheless fairly easy to use. That's why I've included lots of screenshots so you can see what I was doing and follow along with me.
Only by practising will you gain the skills you need.
You'll notice that the shapes I walked you through making bore absolutely no resemblance to anything you'll ever want to put in a game. Their advantage is that they were created using a whole bunch of techniques. There might not be any point in making a treasure chest with some letters on the side but by making it you are learning everything you need to map any image on to any shape.
Spend some time playing about with crap shapes that are of no use to anyone. Carve a few objects your own granny would laugh at. Slap some ugly textures on top of a box. By the time you've done it you'll be ready to attempt some real work.
| intro | part 1: Setting the layout | part 2: Editing basics | part 3: Vertex manipulation | part 4: Face manipulation | part 5: Materials, texturing and UVs - (i) | part 6: Materials, texturing and UVs - (ii) | part 7: Materials, texturing and UVs - (iii) | part 8: Final notes |