Introducing 3ds Max 9 3D for beginners apr 2007 - part 4 pptx

When the Slice Plane gizmo is positioned as shown in Figure 4.57, go to the Edit Geometry roll-out and click Slice.. You must click the Slice button because it is like clicking an Apply

3 Until now, when you selected a polygon, it turned solid red in the viewport You canchange it to display as outline when a polygon is selected, and not as solid red You willneed to do this so you can see the new edges you are creating To turn off Shaded Edgemode, press F2 Your selected polygons will now show red only around the edges.

4 With the Slice Plane tool still active, right-click in the viewport to bring up the Quadmenu Go to the Transform menu and select Rotate Figure 4.56 shows this shortcutfor the Transform tools

5 You need to rotate the Slice Plane gizmo 90-degrees along the Y-axis Center the

cur-sor over the Transform gizmo’s Y-axis (green wire), and click/drag until the

Trans-form Type-in box at the bottom of the interface reads 90 in the Y-box, or you can

enter the rotation amount for Y and press Enter As you rotate, you will see the slice

interactively displayed as a red line on the selected polygons

6 Use the Move tool (W) to position the Slice Plane gizmo, where you want the first

slice The movement will be along the X-axis or horizontal along the box When the

Slice Plane gizmo is positioned as shown in Figure 4.57, go to the Edit Geometry

roll-out and click Slice Don’t click Slice Plane because that will deactivate only the Slice

Plane tool You must click the Slice button because it is like clicking an Apply button

for the Slice Plane tool Once you click Slice, the polygon will have a new segment at

that location The Slice Plane tool should still be active

7 You need four slices at each end of the dresser bottom, as shown in Figure 4.58

Keep in mind that the polygons are selected on the front and back so that the Slice

Plane tool will slice only polygons that are selected within the gizmo Click the

Slice Plane button to deactivate the tool when you have placed four vertical slices

in all four corners of the front and back bottom lips of the dresser, as shown in

Figure 4.58

Figure 4.57

Place a slice in the corner for the foot of the dresser.

modeling a chest of drawers ■149

8 Press the spacebar to unlock your selection You are going to use a combination of ing edges and polygons to create the detail on the bottom of the dresser Simply selectthe relevant polygons, and use the Move tool to place them as shown in Figure 4.59.

mov-Don’t worry if your adjustments don’t have a perfectly smooth curve Unless the era is right on top of the detail, it will look good from a distance A perfect curve is notnecessary, especially for our purposes

cam-You can use the same techniques in the Steps 1 through 8 to create detail in the sidebottom lip of the dresser, as shown in Figure 4.60 Make sure you save your work

Figure 4.58

Place four vertical

slices at each corner.

Figure 4.60

Use the same steps

to create the details

on the sides of the bottom.

Figure 4.59

Move polygons to create detail in the dresser feet.

modeling a chest of drawers ■151

Making the Drawers

In the beginning of this exercise, you created a box with six segments on its height Youcan use those segments to create the drawers This is an example of thinking ahead andplanning your model before you start an object This was by far the easiest way to go;using the Slice Plane tool to add segments for the drawers after the box was made wouldhave been more laborious

For simplicity’s sake, you will not create drawers that can open and shut in this cise If this dresser were to be used in an animation in which the drawers would beopened, you would make them differently

exer-First, take a look at the drawers and see where you have to go Figure 4.61 shows thedrawers and an important detail we need to consider Luckily, you needn’t worry aboutthe junk on top of the dresser

Gap Between Drawers and Dresser Figure 4.61

Checking out the

real dresser drawers

To model the drawers, begin with these steps:

1 Create a small gap around the edge of the box This gap will represent the space

between the drawer and the main body of the dresser (Figure 4.61) Go to Polygon

mode (press 4), and select the six polygons on the front of the box that represent the

drawers Remember to hold the Ctrl key while selecting the additional polygons; this

will allow you to make multiple polygon selections

2 Go to the Edit Polygons rollout in the Modify panel,

and click the Inset Settings button Set the Inset Amount

to 0.6 and keep the Inset Type to Group, as shown

here Click OK Figure 4.62 shows the result of the

Inset operation

You can load the Dresser02.maxscene file from the Scenes folder in the Dresser project

on the companion CD to check your work or to begin the next series of steps

modeling a chest of drawers ■153

3 Keep those newly inset polygons selected, and go back to the Edit Polygons rollout toselect the Extrude Settings button Change the Extrusion Height to –0.5, keep ExtrusionType set to Group, and press OK The faces will now extrude inward a little bit, asshown here.

4 In the original reference picture (Figure 4.42), the top drawer of the dresser is split

into two, so you need to slice that top drawer polygon vertically to create two drawers

Make sure the selected polygons are displayed with the red outlines instead of the

solid red color (toggle with F2) Switch your viewport to a Front view

5 Select the polygon that represents the top drawer, as shown in Figure 4.63 Select the

Slice Plane button in the Edit Geometry rollout Rotate and move the Slice Plane

gizmo so that it is vertical and centered on the polygon as shown here, and click Slice

Click the Slice Plane button to release the tool

6 The polygons are still selected after the Slice operation, so go back to the Edit

Poly-gons rollout and click the Inset Settings button Set the Inset Amount to 0.25 This

time we are going to change the Inset Type from Group to By Polygon, as shown

below This setting insets each polygon individually,

instead of it taking place across multiple, contiguous

polygons as does the Group option Click OK to run

the Inset operation Your polygons should resemble

the ones in Figure 4.64

modeling a chest of drawers ■155

7 Perform the same inset operation on the remaining drawer polygons on the front of

the box (as shown): Set the Inset Amount to 25, set the Inset Type to By Polygon

This will inset the five lower wide drawers

8 Select all of the “drawer” polygons Go to the Edit Polygons rollout and click the Extrude

Settings button Set the Extrude Amount to 0.7 You don’t need it to extrude very

much; you just want the drawers to extrude a bit more than the body of the dresser

modeling a chest of drawers ■157

Go grab yourself a frosty beverage! The dresser is finished Go ahead and name thedresser You can even change the color of the dresser if you’d like Go to the Name and

Color Type-In (shown in Figure 4.65), and change the name of the object to

Dresser and pick a nice light color.

The finished dresser body should look like the dresser in Figure 4.66.Remember to save this version of your file You can also load the Dresser03.max

scene file from the Scenes folder in the Dresser project on the companion

CD to check your work or to skip to this part in the exercise

Creating the Knobs

Now that the body of the dresser is done, it’s time to add the final bit of detail to make thedresser complete: knobs We will use Splines and a few surface creation tools new to yourworkflow Goose bumps, anyone? Take a look at the reference for the knobs in Figure 4.67.You are going to create a profile of the knob and then rotate the profile around its axis to

form a surface This technique is known as Lathe, not to be mistaken for latte, which is a

whole different deal and not really covered in this book

Here’s a quick rundown of what a spline is: a spline is a group of vertices and ing segments that form a line or curve To create the knob profile, we are going to use theLine Spline, shaped in the outline of—you guessed it—a knob The Line tool allows you tocreate a free-form spline

Name the dresser

and pick a nice color.

You can use your last file from the Dresser exercise, or you can load Dresser03.max

from the Scenes folder of the Dresser project on the companion CD To build the knobs,

follow these steps:

1 Make sure you are in the Left viewport, so you can see which side of the dresser the

drawers are on You are going to create a profile of half the knob, as shown in

Figure 4.68 Don’t worry about creating all the detail in the knob because detail

won’t be seen; a simple outline will be fine

2 Go to the Create panel and choose Shapes Click the Line button Use the current

default values in the Creation Method rollout, as shown here

3 In the Left viewport, click once to lay down a vertex for this line, starting at the

bot-tom of the intended profile for the knob This is the starting point for the curve When

you are creating a line, every click lays down the next vertex for the line In essence,

the vertex controls the position of a point of the line If you want to create a curve in

the line, click once and drag the mouse in any direction to give the vertex a curvature

of sorts This curve vertex creates a curve in that part of the line You will need to

fol-low the rough outline of a knob, so click and drag where there is curvature in the line

Once you have laid down your first vertex, continue to click and drag more vertices

for the line clockwise until you create the half-profile knob shape shown in Figure 4.68

Figure 4.69 shows the profile line with the vertices numbered according to their

4 Once you lay down your last vertex at the top, finish the spline by either right-clicking

to release the Line tool or clicking on the first vertex you created to close the spline.For this example, it really doesn’t matter which method you choose Either an open

or closed spline will work: however, a closed spline is shown in Figure 4.69 Drawingsplines entails a bit of a learning curve, so it might be helpful to delete the one you didfirst and try again for the practice Once you get something resembling the spline inFigure 4.69, you can edit it Don’t drive yourself crazy; just get the spline as close asyou can

5 With the spline selected, go to the Modify panel In the Modifier Stack window, youwill see the entry Line with a plus sign in a black box next to it denoting that it hasSub-Object modes Click the plus to expand the list of sub-objects, as shown here

Figure 4.69

The knob’s profile

line’s vertices are

numbered

accord-ing to the order

in which they were

A L I N E ’ S V E R T E X T Y P E

When you center your cursor over a line’s vertex and right-click to bring up the shortcut

menu, you will have access to several vertex controls In that shortcut menu, under the menu

heading Tools1, you can choose a vertex type.

The vertex types are the following:

Smooth: A Smooth vertex creates a smooth continuous

curve The actual curvature at a smooth vertex depends

on the spacing of the adjacent vertices This is a justable vertex, meaning it has no handles with which you can control the curvature directly.

nonad-Corner: A Corner vertex is nonadjustable and that

cre-ates sharp corners.

Bezier: A Bezier vertex is a vertex that has locked

con-tinuous handles that create a smooth curve You can directly adjust the curvature at a Bezier vertex by manipulating its handles Adjusting a handle on one side of the vertex will also adjust the other side’s han- dle, as they are continuous.

Bezier Corner: A Bezier Corner vertex creates a sharp corner like the Corner vertex, but it

has discontinuous tangent handles with which you can control the curvature of the line

at that vertex The handle on one side of the vertex will not affect the handle on the other side.

In some ways, Line’s sub-objects are similar to the Editable Poly Sub-Object modes

However, when you are working with a spline, you are working with a 2D nonrendering

object A spline is made up of three sub-objects: a vertex, a segment, and a spline As you

know, a vertex is a point in space A segment is the line that connects two vertices The

Spline mode allows you to select and/or transform a single or multiple splines within a

spline object To continue with the project, follow with these steps:

6 Choose the vertex sub-object for the line Make sure you are still working in the Left

viewport When you’re working with 2D splines, it is always best to work in

Ortho-graphic view Use the Move tool to click on one of the vertices The vertex has a

Transform gizmo just like an object Use the Move tool to edit the shape to better fit

the outline of the knob Be sure to read the sidebar in this section titled “A Line’s

Vertex Type” to learn more about the types of vertices a line can have, and how it can

change the curvature of a line If needed, you can change the vertex type of your line’s

vertices to control the curvature

modeling a chest of drawers ■161

To catch up to this point, you can load the Dresser04.maxfile from the Scenes folder ofthe Dresser project on the companion CD.

7 The profile line is ready to turn into a 3D object This is where the modifiers areused Get out of Sub-Object mode for your line Choose Modifiers ➔Patch/SplineEditing ➔Lathe (you could also go to the Modifier List and choose Lathe from thealphabetical list of modifiers) When you first put the Lathe modifier on yourspline, it won’t look anything like the knob (see Figure 4.70)—but don’t panic! You need to futz with the parameters to get it right (Figure 4.71) Basically, theobject is turned inside out

8 Go to Parameters rollout and under the Align Heading, click the Max button It’s aknob! Now, that is more like it You just had to change the alignment of the axis sothe lathe revolution would be correct

9 Rotate the Perspective view so you can see the top of the knob You should notice astrange artifact To correct this, check the Weld Core box under the Parameters roll-out for the lathe

That’s it! Check out Figure 4.72 for a look at the lathed knob By using Splines andLathe, you can create all sorts of surfaces for your models In the next section, you willresize the knob, position it, and copy it to fit on the drawers

If Step 8 does not work properly for you, try clicking the Min button instead of Max under the Align heading When you are creating a line, where you begin to create that line and in what order you place the vertices, clockwise or counter-clockwise, are both important This exam- ple drew the knob’s profile line in a clockwise direction.

Copying the Knob

Now that you have a knob, you may need to adjust it and make it

the right size If you still want to futz with the knob, go back

down the stack to the line to edit your spline For example, you

may want to scale the knob a bit to better fit the drawer (refer to

the reference photo in Figure 4.67) Select the Scale tool, and click

and drag until the original line is about 40 percent smaller The

Lathe modifier will re-create the surface to fit the new size You

can also delete the knob and restart with another line for more

practice In the following steps, you will copy and position the

knob for the drawers

1 Position and rotate the knob to fit on to the front of a top drawer Change its default

color (if you want) and change its name to Knob.

2 You’ll need a few copies of the original knob, one for each drawer Choose Edit ➔

Clone (Figure 4.73) You are going to use the Instance command An instance is a

copy, but an instance is still connected to the original If you edit the original or an

instance, all of the instances change Click OK to create an instance

3 Simply position the instanced knob in the middle of the other top drawer

4 Using more instances of the original knob, place knobs in the middle of all the

remaining drawers of your dresser, as seen in Figure 4.74

As you saw with this exercise, there are plenty of tools for the Editable Poly object Your

model doesn’t have to be all of the same type of modeling either In this example, we created

the dresser using box modeling techniques, where you begin with a single box and extrude

your way into a model, and with surface creation techniques using splines

You can compare your work to the scene file Dresser05.maxfrom the Scenes folder of

the Dresser project on the companion CD

Modeling a Hand

Now that you’ve had some experience modeling in 3ds Max, you can tackle modeling asimple hand The goal is to acquire experience with some other tools Max has to offer.Before you begin modeling, look at a reference Luckily, you probably have one or twohands at the ends of your arms

Starting the Palm

There are several ways to model a hand, but you’ll start with the same modeling niques you started with in the Dresser exercise To begin box modeling the hand, followthese steps:

tech-1 Start a new 3ds Max file in a new project called Hand, or copy the Hand project fromthe companion CD to your hard drive

2 Make sure the Perspective viewport is active Create a box on the home grid in thePerspective viewport You are going to use Keyboard Entry to create the box to cer-tain specifications In the Keyboard Entry rollout in the Create panel’s parameters for

the box, enter the following parameters: Length of 90, Width of 150, and Height of 30,

as shown in the following graphic The X-, Y-, and Z-parameters in the Keyboard

Entry rollout are used to place the object in your scene by using the coordinate youspecify Keep those values at 0 to create the box in the center of your scene Choosethe Create button at the bottom of the rollout to create the box as defined

3 Go to the Modify panel, and you will see the parameters for the box You need tosubdivide the box so it has more polygons Press F4 to toggle on Edged Face mode inyour viewport In the Modify panel’s Parameters rollout, set the box Length Segs to 4,Width Segs to 3, and Height Segs to 1, as you see here

4 Look at the box and imagine that it is the palm of the hand The polygons facing you

in Figure 4.75 are going to be the fingers The poly farthest from you will be the pinkyfinger, and the one nearest will be the index This should help you get oriented

5 Convert the box into an Editable Polygon You can reference the Dresser exercise in

this chapter if you have skipped to this section

6 The fingers polygons will need to be slightly splayed out, so they will not all stick

together when you extrude them Use the Edge Sub-Object mode to do this In the

Modifier Stack, click the plus sign to reveal the sub-objects for the box

7 Use the keyboard shortcut 2 to choose the Edge Sub-Object level Select the

edge closest to you (which will be the outer edge of the index finger), as seen in

Figure 4.76

8 Click the Lock Selection icon or press the spacebar to lock this selection so you

don’t lose the selected edge The Lock button will turn yellow, indicating it is in use

9 Use the keyboard shortcut W to enable the Move tool Move the edge along the X-axis.

You might find it easier to use the Top viewport for the move Use the Transform

gizmo—center the cursor so that the X and the tail of the X-axis arrow are yellow.

Select this edge.

Pinky Finger

Top of Hand

Wrist

Thumb Index Finger

modeling a hand ■165

Figure 4.75

The box will be the palm of the hand, and the fingers will

be extruded from the polygons facing you.

Figure 4.76

Select the edge of the index finger.

Yellow indicates that the axis is locked This will confine the movement to the X-axis

and no other, as shown here

10 Switch to the Top viewport and move the Edge, as shown here Press the spacebar torelease the selection Lock

11 Move the other Edges to create a slight arch where the top of the palm will be, asshown in the following graphic This will ensure that when you extrude the polygonsfor the fingers, there will be space for the webbing in-between If you don’t want thefingers spread apart this much, make the arc less curved This repositions the polygon

to a different angle so it won’t extrude out straight

Now is a good time to save with File ➔Save As Make sure you use the plus sign (+)

instead of pressing the Save button, as this will add a number increment to the end of

your filename (for instance: hand01.max) as shown in Figure 4.77 To catch up to this point

or to check your own work, load the scene file Hand01.maxfrom the Hand project on the

companion CD

Creating the Fingers

Now it is time to extrude out the fingers

1 With the box selected, select the Polygon Sub-Object mode or press 4 on your

key-board Go to the Perspective view, Click on the polygon that represents the index

fin-ger (closest to you), as you see here

2 Go to the Modify panel under the Edit Polygons rollout Click the Extrude Settings

button (the Settings button is directly to the right of the extrude button) to bring

up the Extrude Settings dialog box See the sidebar titled “Extrusion Options” for

more about the parameters and options for the Extrude function

Incremental Save

Figure 4.77

Save!

modeling a hand ■167

per-E X T R U D per-E O P T I O N S

By Polygon—Each polygon is extruded individually along its own normal.

Extrusion Height—Specifies how much to extrude in scene units As you’ve already seen, positive values extrude out away from the object, and negative values extrude into the object.

3 We are going to extrude the first finger so that it has three sections, so instead of

doing one extrude, we are going to do three back to back This will give the finger

more segments with which to work If you look at your own finger, you will notice the

lower joint is the biggest joint, getting smaller toward the tip of the finger In the

Set-tings dialog box, set the first Amount to 60 units The Setting dialog box allows you to

interactively perform the functions, so you can see the extrude before you apply it

The 60 unit extrude looks good, so click Apply This keeps the Settings window open

Go to the Extrusion Amount and enter 50; this will change the extruded segment to

50 units Click Apply again for the second extrusion Change the Extrude Amount to

40, and press OK for the last extrusion of the index finger Figure 4.78 shows the first

finger

modeling a hand ■169

4 Using the same techniques and the following settings for the Extrusion Amounts,extrude the rest of the fingers.

This is a good time to do another Save As; make sure you use the plus sign (+) instead

of pressing the Save button To catch up to this point or to check your own work, load thescene file Hand02.maxfrom the Hand project on the companion CD

Creating the Thumb

Now you will create the thumb, also using extrusions Follow these steps:

1 Select the polygon in the middle of the side of the hand, as shown here As with thefingers, the thumb will have three segments Select the Extrude Settings button and

enter an Extrude Amount of 30 units Click Apply twice for two 30 unit extrusions, and then click once more with an Extrude Amount of 20 Click OK.

2 To shape the thumb, you will use a combination of adjusting

edge and poly locations Figure 4.81 shows a picture of a hand;

notice how the thumb extrudes from the bottom of the hand

Using Edge mode, rearrange the edges in the extruded thumb to

create a shape as shown in Figure 4.82

Save an iteration of your scene Now you should have the general

shape for the hand It is still very rough, with no detail To catch up

to this point or to check your own work, load the scene file

Hand03.maxfrom the Hand project on the companion CD

Subdivision Surfaces

You may be wondering how to take this boxy thing and turn it into something more

organic and realistic By using Subdivision Surfaces, or SubDs, you can take a relatively

simple object with very few segments and subdivide the polygons SubD makes a flat

sur-face appear smoother

Follow these steps to use Subdivision Surfaces for your hand:

1 To apply the SubD, with the hand selected, check the Use NURMS Subdivision box in

the Subdivision Surface rollout in the Modify panel Figure 4.83 shows the hand

before and after you apply the NURMS Subdivision

Check this box to Apply the smoothing.

Figure 4.83

Using NURMS vision to smooth out the hand

2 Once the smoothing is applied, you will see an orange cage surrounding the hand ifyou are in any Sub-Object mode This allows you to work with this low-res cage whilethe smoother version is updating at the same time.

3 You can control how much smoothing applies to the hand using the Iterationsparameter, which is by default set to 1 Be very careful how many Iterations you add.The higher the number, the harder the computer has to work to process the informa-tion You can leave Iterations set to 1 for the hand

4 Uncheck Isoline Display in the Subdivision Surface rollout When Isoline Display isoff, Max displays all the faces added by the smoothing, as shown on the right in Fig-

ure 4.84 The default of on shows only the objects original edges, as shown on the left

in Figure 4.84

Figure 4.84

When Isoline Display

is turned off, all of

the faces added by

the smoothing

oper-ation are shown.

5 Make sure you are in Polygon Sub-Object mode Press F2 to

toggle the Shaded Face mode, so that when you select a poly, it

will be shaded in red and easier to see Now, select a polygon on

the hand and right-click to access the shortcuts menu Select

Transform ➔Move Move the polygon in any direction The

polygon will pull the surrounding polygons with it, but the

selection is softer (Figure 4.85) This makes it possible to model

in a push and pull fashion, just as if molding clay

You don’t want to save what you have done with the SubDs, so

either undo all the smoothing changes or reopen the last saved file

It is actually easier to work with the boxy hand before the NURMS

smoothing You can also just uncheck the Use NURMS Subdivision

You will come back to this later

Adding Detail to the Hand

You are going to begin adding some simple detail to the hand One of the easiest ways to

do this is using the Cut tool, which is a part of the Cut and Slice Group You will find the

Cut tool in the Edit Geometry rollout, which is shown here

The Cut tool allows you to divide an edge at any point You then divide a second edge

at any point, and the tool will create a new edge between the two points To create more

edges for detail on the hand, follow these steps:

1 With the hand selected, click on the Cut Tool button Now click on the first edge

(use Figure 4.86 as a reference) at the first knuckle on the index finger A new vertex

is created where you clicked A dotted line will track along with your cursor until you

click a second edge Click on the opposite edge from your initial one to add a new

edge next to the first segment on the index finger Right-click to exit the tool

Simi-larly, add new edges to the knuckle areas shown in Figure 4.86 You may want to

add the new edges in a Nonperspective viewport Working with the Cut tool in a

Perspective view may be a bit difficult; the newly created edges may appear to jump

around the hand or won’t place correctly In the Orthogonal views, it is simpler to

read where the Cut tool is placing edges In addition, while working with the Cut

tool, turn on Ignore Backfacing in the Selection rollout to avoid selecting edges on

the back of the hand by accident

With the Cut tool, you can cut across any number of faces Also, if you simply double-click on

the first edge, 3ds Max will divide that edge at the point where you clicked by adding a

ver-tex there You need not click on a second edge if you double-click Right-click to exit the tool.

modeling a hand ■173

Figure 4.85

You can mold the hand by moving polygons.

2 With all the new edges, use the Move tool to move those edges to create the knuckles and the fleshy area on the bottom of the fingers You can also rearrangethe edges at the tip of the finger to give the fingers a more tapered look Click onUse NURMS Subdivision to see how the knuckles and fingers look with smoothing,

as seen in Figure 4.87 You can see how the NURMS SubDs really smooth out thedetail, so don’t be afraid to exaggerate the detail so that it looks better when smoothed,

as you can see in Figure 4.87 Click off Use NURMS Subdivision to return to theboxy hand

3 Let’s add some knuckles at the end of the fingers You are going to use a tool foradding detail that is another way of subdividing a polygon Tessellate doesn’t give youthe control options the Cut tool does, but it can be more precise The Tessellate but-ton is under the Edit Geometry rollout in the Modify panel Two Tessellate methodsare available: Edge and Face (Figure 4.88)

See the sidebar in this section titled “Tessellate Options” for more on Tessellatebefore you use it in action in the following steps

Figure 4.87

See how the

smoothing will

affect the detail you

are adding to the