How To Model In 3Ds Max

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First note, if you are using 3ds Max for free then you can NOT earn any money from it. If you look at the box that pops up it is very clear that you need a commercial license to earn money.



Opening Max

This is what you'll see when you first open up 3ds max.



Opening.jpg




Things to note: the grid you see is a floor for you to work on BUT you can go through it anytime, this is the perspective viewport. To get a better idea of what both perspective and viewport mean lets use a shortcut ALT+W. Make sure you've left clicked in the window before hitting that.



CtrlW.jpg




You can now see four(4) viewports. Viewports are your windows in the virtual world, the computer always knows what your model looks like but you have to have a way to see it. First we'll learn what the viewports are looking at exactly and then how to manipulate them for fun and for profit.



Viewports.jpg




Now you can see that I created a model and placed it in the center of the world(more on coordinates later). Now lets look at the viewports. The upper-left viewport is your top viewport. The top viewport looks down into the 3d world. Now this can be a little tricky since a model COULD be created upside down, but up is up regardless just like in the real world.



The lower left viewport is your left viewport. It looks from the left to the right of the world. On the upper right is the front viewport. It just looks from the front to the back of the world, giving you a head-on view.



On the lower right hand is the perspective viewport. This one is different from all the others. The top, right and left viewports are all wireframe which means they only show the polygons' edges(more on these later). Also they present orthogonal views, this means that if you look edge on a model you should only see the outline(in most cases). But neither of these are how you actually see things in real life. The perspective viewport both shows the surface(think of it as the skin) and puts perspective on the model(heh, didn't see that coming right?). When you see an object in real life the edges tend to flair due to the way your eye works.



Now to really get an idea of how manage your viewports we need to make an object. Lets start with a cube. First click box then click the cube option that appears below.



Cube.jpg




Now click in the center of your perspective viewport and drag out a bit. A cube should appear! Your cube does not need to be the same size as mine, but it should be the in the same ball park. If you don't like your cube you can either delete it with the DELETE key or use CTRL+Z to undo.



Cube2.jpg




Now you can really see what's happening when you move a viewport around. First hit the Z key to center and zoom in on your box in all the viewports. Z will zoom out or in to include ALL objects you've made and center them. Now that's actually a little to close for me so lets zoom out. Hold down the CTRL+ALT keys and your MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON, now drag in and out. Play around with zoom in all 4 of the viewports for a second to get a feel for it.



Zooming in and is great but it's not all there is to know. Next lets pan, hold your MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON in your perspective viewport and drag around. Panning is basically just dragging, but note that you are dragging the world not your object. Sometimes if your not careful(or even if you are) you might lose your object, it just got too far away from you to see! To fix this use the Z command again to re-center on it.



Only one more way to look at things! That's rotate. To rotate hold the ALT key and your MIDDLE MOUSE BUTTON and again drag around. Notice again that you're moving the world and not your object when you do this.



Hopefully you've been playing in your perspective viewport this whole but it's no big deal if you haven't. The top, right, and left viewports do not like getting rotated(see image below)! To fix them just click the word Orthographic in the view port you've "broken" and select what view you want. You'll notice you actually have more options to choose from but it's probably best to stick to the original ones for now.



Spunviewports.jpg




Alright! Time to actually move objects! First reset all of your viewports. Or even better yet, reset 3ds max. To do this click on the giant M where file usually is on options and click reset. Click no and then yes.



Go ahead and build another box like the first one. Look at the following picture. See the buttons I boxed?
 
OMG!! Thank you so much! I've been using 3DS max for a while now. I got used to some of the functions here, but I'm still a noob at this, heh heh.



Deffinately going to watch this thread!



-Pony
 
Go ahead and build another box like the first one. Look at the following picture. See the buttons I boxed?



Translatebuttons.jpg




Now, from left to right they are: Select and Move(can be selected with the W key), Select and Rotate(the E key), and Select and Uniform Scale(the R key) Knowing and using these shortcut keys is actually fairly important considering the amount of time they will save you, next lets see what they do to the box.



Use the Select and Move(from here on out I will only call it move) and click on your box, a set of arrows will appear. Next to the three buttons I pointed out is a drop down menu that currently says View. Click the arrow and select World from the list that appears. This really isn't necessary but it will simplify things for now. If they didn't try selecting it again and if they still don't appear try pressing the X key which you might have bumped earlier on accident.



The first you need to know is that 3ds Max uses the Cartesian Coordinate System(click the link if you need more help). This means there is an origin which is the center of the world. It has the coordinates of (0,0,0). Coming off that point is the x-axis(left and right), y-axis(forward and back), and z-axis(up and down). Colored, labeled arrows should have appeared when you selected your box illustrating this.



Move.jpg




Alright, at the top in the orange box is where to apply the World setting. I thicken the arrows to make them easier to see. Notice if you mouse over an arrow it turns yellow. The box that divide the arrows also turn yellow when moused over.



Grab the z-axis and drag it around. By selecting the arrow you have constrained(limited) yourself to only moving in that one axis, the box will not move forward and back or side to side. You can use CTRL+Z to undo any where you moved it(this only works for 20 movements before it forgets what came before). Now grab one of those boxes. The box that connects the X and Z axises will allow you to move in BOTH axises instead of just one.



Lets learn a little more about the coordinate system. This is important for precise alignment. See the yellow box at the bottom? Those three boxes are call spinners Max uses these a lot. You can type in any number you want(in most cases). What ever number is currently display in these spinners tells you the absolute position of your object in the world(assuming you have the move tool selected). One handy feature of spinners is if you RIGHT CLICK on the arrows they go to their lowest number. In this case that number is 0 but in other instances 0 is not an acceptable number for a spinner.



The Rotate tool works basically the same way, only spinning the object instead of moving it. Play around it to get a feel for it.



The Scale tool is a little bit of a different animal. You'll notice it looks very similar to the move tool except that a triangle reaches across the three arrows. Grab the Z axis and drag on it. You'll your box squish and stretch along the z axis. Same for the other three. Again, like the move tool, grab the little shape between two of the axises and you can scale in the two dimensions. They will both scale the SAME amount up and down. But now grab that triangle in the middle, the whole part changes size. This tool is very handy when we actually start editing objects, be sure to be familiar with it.



Model Creation



The first step here is to click on the words [Smooth + Highlights] on your perspective viewport. Click Edged Faces from the drop down menu that appears. Now that text should read [+][Perspective][Smooth + Highlights + Edged Faces]. Like before, I want you to make a box in cube mode. Now click on the viewport and hit the J key, it will remove the bounding frames which I feel just get in the way.



Take a look at this next picture. You'll see if you didn't notice before that there are tabs(circled in blue) and buttons(in red) on the right of the screen. I want you to click on the second tab. If you mouse over it you'll see its name: the Modify tab. The default tab you've been using has been the Create tab. The buttons are something I might go into later(you might have noticed that this is already a pretty serious undertaking.



Tabs.jpg




So now you're on the Modify tab, click on your box to be sure it's selected. Now you should see where it says Box 01 this is the name of your box. You can rename it anything you want right here(something obscene probably). It's good to name objects if you're going to have a lot of them. Right underneath that is a drop down that says Modifier List. That has a lot of handy tools we will need later. Finally below that it says Box, Box is your object type and the base on which you will apply modifiers(if you do). The window just serves as a sorting and selection area for any modifiers you apply.



Finally the good stuff. See where it says Parameters? That's where we're going to be playing for a while. Remember how I showed you the position spinners? These top three spinners determine the size of your object, feel free to play with them. Next you'll see three more spinners named Length Segs, Width Segs, and Height Segs. Remember how I said that sometimes the lowest possible setting for a spinner is more than 0? Here it's one, try putting different numbers into the boxes and you'll see immediate changes to your object(but not its actual shape).



What you're doing is adding more edges. Why? This involves a bit of a geometry lesson. A triangle is defined by three points. So if you have a three point object it is ALWAYS a triangle. So if you want to make it a different shape you need to add more points. In 3ds Max these points are called Vertices(a vertex is the singular, vertexes is also proper for a plural). Another interesting note about triangles is that if you make the sides a certain length it defines the angles between them. The sides in Max are called Edges. The point of all this is that if you have 8 vertices and 12 edges all you're EVER going to get is some weird version of a box. So you have to add more edges to be able edit it into something else. One final geometry note. A box has 6 sides, in max those sides are called faces.



Ready to make something out of that box?! Set the number of Segs(segments) to 3 for EACH spinner. Now we're going to do something that looks complicated but it's not. Right-Click your box. Mouse over Convert To, and click Convert to Editable Poly.



Converting.jpg




After you do that you should see...



Poly.jpg




Now this looks thoroughly intimidating am I right? Lets break it down. See the vertical green line? Grab right there and drag it out a notch, everything should be less cramped. You don't have to do that by any means though. Remember how in that window on the left it said Box? Your object is no longer a box, it's an Editable Poly.



See the buttons I marked with a red box? Those are the Editing Modes. From left to right they are: Vertex mode, Edge mode, Border mode, Face mode, and Element mode. You can always mouse over if them if your forget the names. Hey! Didn't we just go over what a vertex, edge, and face are? How convenient!! But what are Borders and Elements? I'm going to level with you. You. Don't. Need. To. Know. If it bugs you that much shoot me a pm.



More coming soon!
 
Robby said:
It appears I can't post any more images. Any recommendations?



Have you run out of attachment space on the forum or is it just saying that you've got too many images in one post?

If it's the attachment problem try hosting them on Flickr or Photobucket or something to avoid filling your space on here, if it's that you've got too many pics in one post just double post and add some more. For useful stuff like this double posting to add more info is fine :)



Also I'll clear out all the unnecessary posts once you're done to keep the tutorial together.
 
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Belakor said:
Have you run out of attachment space on the forum or is it just saying that you've got too many images in one post?

If it's the attachment problem try hosting them on Flickr or Photobucket or something to avoid filling your space on here, if it's that you've got too many pics in one post just double post and add some more. For useful stuff like this double posting to add more info is fine :)



Also I'll clear out all the unnecessary posts once you're done to keep the tutorial together.

I'm using photobucket. When I posted my last image and updated it, it only says Posted Image, no explanation. I appreciate the help :p. I gotta get back to studying for finals but I plan to download the new max trial when I get back to the folks and working more on this.
 
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