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I have just recently started using Maya LT so forgive me if I am asking a silly question.

I am trying to model a meteoroid in Maya LT of about 8km in diameter and I am trying to model it to scale. Now I know this sounds like crazy-talk but I don't want a procedurally generated model or a model using a UV-map.

The largest (metric) unit type in Maya is meters, so I have set this to meters and try to create the model at its actual size.

For starters I created a sphere of 2 units in diameter and set the scale to 4000. This results in me seeing nothing. When I try to frame the object I just get a gray screen and I am unable to edit it properly. I feel that my model might be getting a bit to big for the application.

What is the best approach for modelling such large environments. Should I scale it down, add smaller details and scale it up in Unity? How would I best go about this?

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is better suited to the Maya forums. For what it's worth though, from my experience with Maya, it should have no problems with modeling large environments to scale. I suspect there is something else going wrong in your setup, but on the Maya forums you will find people with more experience who can guide you to the right solution. \$\endgroup\$
    – MrCranky
    Jun 6 '17 at 8:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ It's not just about getting it to work in Maya, but should I actually try and model such large objects to scale or is there a better approach? \$\endgroup\$
    – Thizzer
    Jun 6 '17 at 9:52
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Gnemlock In my humble opinion this has nothing to do with Game Development. I feel like you should always think "is a professional Game Developer potentially more qualified to help me with this question than anyone else". In this case that's not true (a game developer might know about it but in general a game developmer won't) therefor I think this question is off-topic. I also feel like this question might be too broad / opinionated since it asks for the best approach. Not sure how I feel about that one though. \$\endgroup\$
    – Charanor
    Jun 6 '17 at 11:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Charanor Well the end use of the model is a game and I found this the place with the most related questions regarding 3d modelling. Or would graphicdesign.stackexchange.com be more appropriate? \$\endgroup\$
    – Thizzer
    Jun 6 '17 at 11:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ I've opened a meta post about this question. Please drop by and share your thoughts so I can better understand your reasoning about questions like this! :) \$\endgroup\$
    – Charanor
    Jun 6 '17 at 11:52
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For the sake of answering the question I have also put up a post in the (Maya forums) and they've come up with the following solutions.

Option 1. Change camera settings

Go to Settings > Cameras and change the Near- and Far-clip plane of the camera to accommodate the model size. On thing to keep in account with this solution is that when creating large models floating point precision won't always allow to model to the detail level that might be preferred.

Option 2. Scaling

Scale down the model in maya for example 1:10 and then increase the scale of the model in Unity.

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