Talal Ur Rehman shows a smart way to use MASH to create a volleyball in Maya.

Sports balls pose a challenge when modeling them in 3D. Adding things like the stitching, patterns and other tiny details usually offer great modeling practice. However, as with everything in 3D, there is always an ingenious method afoot, you just need to find it. For example, check out this new tutorial from Talal Ur Rehman’s AboutOneMinuteTutorial channel. The tutorial shows a unique and fast way to model a volleyball.

Rehman starts by making 2D planes and then uses Maya’s motion graphics toolkit MASH to instance them in a pattern and then a cube shape. The cube transforms into a sphere using the sculpt deformer. A cluster deformer makes short work of transforming the edges into grooved stitching. Neat!