Table of Presents | Modeling + NCloth Simulation

Hello! My name is Nesma Mavrakis and I'm a beginner in 3D Modeling and texturing!

To celebrate the Instructable Robot's birthday, I'm creating a table of birthday presents for its party room! Today, I'm going to walk you through how I modeled and textured presents, balloons, and tablecloth in a few easy steps. I'll also show you how to use an nCloth simulation inside Autodesk Maya to make tablecloth; and so you can use it in your future creations to make stunning effects!

1. Access to Autodesk Maya (2025)
2. Reference images
3. Textures for the present's wrapping paper, floor, table, and tablecloth

To start, I'll make the main assets.

First, I made a present. I used the modeling tool "Bevel" to create extra divisions to the edges and corners of a cube. This will help the cube keep its shape when I make it smooth. For the bow, I created three pipes and made them into oval loop-like shapes. Then I used Bevel on them too and made them smooth. When you use Bevel to make divisions for Smooth, adjust the Fraction to 0.1 - 0.3 depending on how big the object is. You can also add another Segment if necessary. I made the ribbon around the present by duplicating the cube I made the box with and scaled it wider along the X and Y-axis.

To make walls for a room, one would usually take three cubes and stretch them to size. An easier way to do this is to use two cubes to the size of the room, duplicate and offset it as shown in the picture above, and then use it as a negative space for the "Boolean". This creates one solid object as your walls and floor.

The balloon consists of a sphere with an extra extrusion on the bottom. I used "Curves" to make the string, and a Torus polygon for the tie. In order to use Curves, you have to go into one of your 2D perspective views; or it won't work. I would recommend placing a few extra key points so you have more control over the curve when you're editing its vertexes later. When you've positioned the curve to the way you want it, select it and click "Sweep Mesh" under Poly Modeling. Then, in the Attribute Editor, increase the precision and decrease the scale profile until you think it looks like string. Under "Sweep Profiles", check the box labeled "Caps". This will give you faces at the ends of your sweep mesh.

Now for my favorite part, for the tablecloth!

The best way to make a perfect tablecloth is to run a Simulation, this is in the FX menu and would appear on the top bar. Create a plane and add a bunch of divisions to it by using the "Add Subdivisions" modeling tool; I'd say two divisions would be enough, Then click "nCloth" on the top bar and choose "Create nCloth", this will make the plane fall once you hit the play button on your timeline. Go to the Attribute editor and select the "Silk" Preset for this nCloth then "Replace", this will change the mass and the way it stretches. After you've made a table, select all the objects the table is made of and the floor. Then click "nCloth" again on the top bar and choose "Create Passive Collider", this will make the table a solid place for your cloth to land.

Make sure you're on the first frame. Click play on the right-hand side of your timeline and watch your flat plane flop on the table and become your tablecloth! Find a frame of the animation that you like, then duplicate that geometry; this creates a copy of the cloth that is not bounded to a simulation. Then delete the old one and put your new tablecloth in its place. I would also recommend extruding the faces up slightly to give it depth, and then smoothing it to get rid of all the rough edges.

If it seems like your cloth is falling slowly, it's probably because your plane is a little too big to simulate well, or you need to increase the Gravity. This is found in the Attribute Editor when you select the Nucleus.

A "Clay Render" is a simple render of your models without their textures, it helps you get a feel for what your models look like through the camera.

Here's where I put all my assets together to make the scene. I made a bunch of duplicates of the balloons and made some more presents. You might need to drop in a SkydomeLight so you can see everything. My Image Size is a 4K Square preset.

Now we need color!

You can find textures of wood and wrapping paper designs on the internet. Attach these files to aiStandardSurface materials in your Hypershade window, you can create them by using the search bar under create. I used this material because it has reflective qualities, making your objects look prettier. For the balloons and present ribbons, I made a bunch of these materials and made them different swatch colors. I simply applied these colors wherever looked good, scattered different balloon colors, and two colors for the party room walls. I had to play around with the UVs to get the wrapping paper textures to fit the presents, but the tablecloth fit in perfectly right away.

Now to add some better lights!

What I used was an Arnold Physical Sky, this is an aiSkyDomeLight that casts shadows. I slightly increased its intensity, and kept the old SkyDomeLight from before as a fill light to prevent the shadows from becoming unaurally dark.

And now it's finished!

Hope you had a great birthday full of gifts, Instructable Robot!