vnz 0311 foundation 3ds max 8 architectural visualization (2006)

57 Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling.. 143 Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials.. 321 Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation.. 371 Quick Start 6 Getti

Foundation 3ds Max 8 Architectural Visualization

Brian L Smith

Project Manager | Production Director

Cover Image Designer

Corné van Dooren

Original 3D Cover Artist

Oleg Melnyk

Interior and Cover Designer

Kurt Krames

Foundation 3ds Max 8 Architectural Visualization

Copyright © 2006 by Brian L Smith

All rights reserved No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic

or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the

prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher

ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-557-2

ISBN-10: 1-59059-557-2 Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name,

we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of

infringement of the trademark.

Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013 Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or visit www.springeronline.com For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710

Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail info@apress.com, or visit www.apress.com

The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work

The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the Downloads section.

Credits

This book is dedicated to my lovely wife, Shari, and our two great kids, Laken and Kegan Without their support, this book would simply not have been possible

About the Author xvii

About the Technical Reviewer xviii

About the Cover Image Designer xix

Acknowledgments xx

Introduction xxi

PART 1 GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX 1

Quick Start 1 Getting Started 3

Chapter 1 Navigating the 3ds Max Interface 15

Chapter 2 Working with Objects 37

PART 2 MODELING 57

Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling 59

Chapter 3 Modeling Basics 73

Chapter 4 The Critical Compound Objects Types (Loft, Boolean, Terrain, and Scatter) 107

Chapter 5 The Critical Modeling Modifiers 129

PART 3 MATERIALS 143

Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials 145

Chapter 6 Material Basics 163

Chapter 7 The Critical Map Channels 189

Chapter 8 The Critical Map Types 207 CONTENTS AT A GLANCE

PART 4 LIGHTING 241

Quick Start 4 Getting Started with Lights 243

Chapter 10 Basic Lighting 263

Chapter 11 Photometric Lighting 291

Chapter 12 Global Illumination 307

PART 5 CAMERAS AND ANIMATION 321

Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation 323

Chapter 13 Camera Basics 329

Chapter 14 Animation Basics 341

Chapter 15 Animation Controllers 351

PART 6 RENDERING 371

Quick Start 6 Getting Started with Rendering 373

Chapter 16 Rendering Basics 387

Chapter 17 Scene Assembly 415

Chapter 18 Effect Basics 433

APPENDIXES 461

Appendix A Marketing Your Services 463

Appendix B Top 20 Production Tips 473

Appendix C Customizing 3ds Max 497

Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts 503

Index 511

About the Author xvii

About the Technical Reviewer xviii

About the Cover Image Designer xix

Acknowledgments xx

Introduction xxi

PART 1 GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX 1

Quick Start 1 Getting Started 3

Chapter 1 Navigating the 3ds Max Interface 15

The interface elements 16

Menus 17

Toolbars 17

The Command panel 18

Viewports 18

The Lower Interface bar 18

Quad menus 18

Floaters 19

Dialog boxes 19

Using the Command panel 19

The Create panel 20

The Modify panel 20

The Hierarchy panel 21

The Motion panel 23

The Display panel 23

The Utilities panel 24

Using the viewports 25

Perspective and axonometric views 26

Learning the viewports 26

Zooming, panning, and rotating in a viewport 28

Grids 30

CONTENTS

Viewport refreshing and disabling 30

Rendering levels 31

Enabling Fast View 32

The viewport layouts 34

Undoing and saving view changes 35

Summary 35

Chapter 2 Working with Objects 37

Selecting objects 37

The Select icons 37

The Select Objects dialog box 38

Select by region 40

Selection filters 43

Named selection sets 43

Selection lock 46

Other ways to select objects 46

Isolate selection 46

Displaying objects 47

The Display floater 48

Layers 50

Using the Layer Manager 50

Transforming objects 51

Move 51

Scale 52

Rotate 53

The Transform Type-In dialog box 54

Status bar type-in fields 55

Summary 55

PART 2 MODELING 57

Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling 59

Chapter 3 Modeling Basics 73

Setting up the work environment 74

Units 74

Display drivers 76

Configure paths 77

Preference settings 79

Customization 81

Working with shapes and splines 81

Shapes and splines defined 82

Shape basics 83

The Rendering rollout 85

Working with meshes and polys 88

Creating mesh objects 89

Editing mesh objects 90

The Selection rollout 92

The Soft Selection rollout 95

The Edit Geometry rollout 98

Important features available anywhere 99

Attach 99

Explode 101

Remove Isolated Vertices 102

View Align and Grid Align 102

Important features available only in sub-object modes 103

Detach 103

Delete 104

Weld 104

Summary 105

Chapter 4 The Critical Compound Objects Types (Loft, Boolean, Terrain, and Scatter) 107

Creating Lofts 108

The Creation Method rollout 108

The Surface Parameters rollout 110

The Path Parameters rollout 112

The Skin Parameters rollout 114

The Deformations rollout 116

Creating Booleans 116

Union 117

Subtraction 117

Intersection 118

Cut 118

Suggestions for creating Booleans 119

Creating terrain 120

Creating scatter objects 123

Distribution object parameters 124

The Transform rollout 125

Summary 127

Chapter 5 The Critical Modeling Modifiers 129

The Extrude modifier 129

The Smooth modifier 131

The Noise modifier 132

The Optimize modifier 133

The TurboSmooth modifier 135

The Displace modifier 136

The Lathe modifier 138

The STL Check modifier 140

The Cap Holes modifier 141

Summary 142

PART 3 MATERIALS 143

Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials 145

Chapter 6 Material Basics 163

The Material Editor 163

Sample slots 164

Changing the sample slot background 164

Changing the sample slot object type 165

Magnifying a sample slot 165

Naming materials 167

Creating new materials 167

Assigning materials to objects 167

Loading materials in the sample slots 169

Removing materials and maps 169

Selecting objects by material 171

Showing maps in a viewport 172

Material Editor icons 172

The Material/Map Browser 174

Material libraries 175

The Material/Map Navigator 177

Material Editor rollouts 177

The Shader Basic Parameters rollout 178

The Wire option 178

The 2-Sided option 179

The Blinn Basic Parameters rollout 180

The Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular Color swatches 181

The Specular Highlights section 181

The Self-Illumination section 182

The Extended Parameters rollout 183

The Advanced Transparency section 184

The Wire section 184

The SuperSampling rollout 184

The Maps rollout 187

The Dynamic Properties rollout 187

The Mental Ray Connection rollout 187

Summary 187

Chapter 7 The Critical Map Channels 189

The Maps rollout 190

The Diffuse Color channel 190

The Opacity channel 192

The Bump channel 195

The Reflection channel 197

The Displacement channel 200

Chapter 8 The Critical Map Types 207

The Bitmap map 207

The Coordinates rollout 208

Offset and tiling 209

Angle 210

Blur and blur offset 211

The Noise rollout 213

The Time rollout 214

The Output rollout 214

The Gradient map 215

The Gradient Ramp map 216

The Mix map 218

The Noise map 220

The Smoke map 221

The Waves map 222

The Falloff map 223

Summary 227

Chapter 9 UVW Mapping 229

Generating mapping coordinates 229

The UVW Map modifier 230

Working with the UVW gizmo 231

Sizing and tiling 232

Alignment 232

Map channels and multi/sub-objects 235

Summary 240

PART 4 LIGHTING 241

Quick Start 4 Getting Started with Lights 243

Chapter 10 Basic Lighting 263

Standard lights vs photometric lights 264

The standard light source types 264

Omni lights 265

Spotlights 265

Direct lights 266

Creating lights 266

Viewport navigation controls 268

Light placement 269

Align Camera 269

Place Highlight 270

Light parameters 270

The General Parameters rollout 271

Shadow map 272

Area shadows 274

Raytraced shadows 274

Advanced raytraced shadows 275

The Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout 276

Intensity 276

Color 277

Decay 277

Attenuation 277

The Advanced Effects rollout 279

The Shadow Parameters rollout 280

Rollouts for specific shadow types 282

The Shadow Map Params rollout 282

The Area Shadows rollout 285

The Ray Traced Shadow Params rollout 286

The Adv Ray Traced Params rollout 286

The Optimizations rollout 286

The Spotlight and Directional Parameters rollouts 287

Summary 289

Chapter 11 Photometric Lighting 291

Exposure control 291

Types of exposure control 292

Exposure control parameters 292

Photometric light types 293

Point, linear, and area lights 293

Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout 294

Preset Lights 297

IES Sun 298

IES Sky 299

Daylight 301

Standard lights vs IES Sun and IES Sky 303

Sunlight 304

Summary 304

Chapter 12 Global Illumination 307

Principles of global illumination 308

Shaders 308

Radiosity 309

Radiosity Processing Parameters rollout 310

Initial Quality 310

Refine Iterations 312

Light filtering 314

PART 5 CAMERAS AND ANIMATION 321

Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation 323

Chapter 13 Camera Basics 329

Camera types 330

Creating cameras 331

Viewport navigation controls 332

Camera placement 333

Align Camera 333

Place Highlight 334

Basic camera parameters 334

Lens length and field of view 335

Environment ranges 337

Clipping planes 337

Summary 339

Chapter 14 Animation Basics 341

Basic animation interfaces 342

Time Configuration dialog box 342

Time slider 344

Animation playback controls 344

Keyframing 345

Creating keyframes 346

Creating basic motion 347

Summary 349

Chapter 15 Animation Controllers 351

Controllers 352

Constraints 353

Motion panel 354

Parameters 355

Assign Controller rollout 355

Assigning and changing controllers 356

PRS Parameters rollout 358

Position XYZ Parameters rollout 358

Euler Parameters rollout 358

Key Info (Basic) rollout 359

Trajectories 363

Curve Editor 364

Summary 370

PART 6 RENDERING 371

Quick Start 6 Getting Started with Rendering 373

Chapter 16 Rendering Basics 387

The Render Scene dialog box 388

The Common tab 390

Time Output 390

Output Size 391

Options 391

Render Output 392

Email Notifications 394

The Renderer tab 394

Options 395

Antialiasing 395

Global SuperSampling 396

Object and Motion Blur 396

Auto Reflect/Refract Maps 396

Color Range Limiting 396

Memory management 396

Choosing file dimensions 396

Prints 397

High-definition and standard DVDs 398

Internet images 398

Internet video 398

Additional rendering tools 399

The Print Size Wizard 399

The RAM Player 400

The Panorama Exporter 402

Video Post 404

Network rendering 409

Summary 413

Chapter 17 Scene Assembly 415

Computer power vs scene complexity 416

Transferring files 416

Instance vs copy 418

Refreshing and rendering viewports 420

Assembly tools 422

Save Selected 423

Merge 424

Import 425

Export 426

Export Selected 426

XRef Objects 426

XRef Scenes 428

File Link Manager 428

File Properties 428

Summary Info 429

Archive and Resource Collector 430

Summary 431

Chapter 18 Effect Basics 433

Atmospheric effects 434

The Fire effect 435

The Fog effect 437

Standard fog 439

Environment ranges 440

Layered fog 442

The Volume Fog effect 443

The Volume Light effect 445

Render effects 448

The Lens effect 449

The Depth of Field effect 452

The Motion Blur effect 453

Multi-pass effects 455

The Multi-Pass Motion Blur effect 455

The Multi-Pass Depth of Field effect 457

Summary 460

APPENDIXES 461

Appendix A Marketing Your Services 463

Your clients 463

Developers 464

Architects 464

Continuing education 465

Individuals 465

Contractors 466

Real estate agents 466

Your tools 466

Websites 467

Brochures 468

Phone books 468

DVDs 469

Phone calls 469

E-mails 470

Summary 470

Appendix B Top 20 Production Tips 473

1 Build a network of subcontractors 474

2 Inspect the architectural drawings 475

3 Write a good script as soon as possible 477

4 Question poor designs 478

5 Master the keyboard shortcuts 478

6 Use additional input devices 479

7 Write a good contract 480

8 Break up projects into smaller jobs 480

9 Use the Loft feature 481

10 Save incrementally and save often 481

11 Use advanced raytraced shadows and know when to use advanced lighting 482

12 Purchase the best available model and material libraries 483

13 Create assembly lines for doors and windows 484

14 Use material libraries 486

15 Use standard scene elements 487

16 Use the top third-party plug-ins 487

17 Use the Scatter command and Spacing tool to create vegetation 489

18 Use artificial shadows 490

19 Participate in website forums 492

20 Attend trade shows, seminars, and classes 493

Summary 494

Appendix C Customizing 3ds Max 497

The Customize menu 497

UI schemes 498

Custom UI and Defaults Switcher 498

Customize User Interface 500

Summary 501

Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts 503

Default keyboard shortcuts 503

Additional keyboard shortcuts 507

Index 511

Since 1997, Brian Smith has worked as a CAD manager and

anima-tion specialist in architectural, engineering, and landscaping firms insouthwest Florida He started his own company in 2001, specializing

in the production of architectural animations and renderings in3ds Max He is the cofounder of 3D Architectural Solutions inSarasota, Florida, and is currently an instructor at the AutodeskAuthorized Training Center, Planet Digital Education, in Orlando(www.planetdigital.com), where he teaches 3ds Max for the visual-ization industry A portfolio of his work can be seen at www.3das.com.Brian graduated from the U.S Military Academy at West Point with amajor in aerospace engineering He served on active duty, and later

in the Florida Army National Guard, including two years as a battery commander, responsible for ashort range air defense battery of over 100 soldiers Following 9/11, he served in Washington, D.C

as an air defense artillery fire control officer, working closely with the US Secret Service, the

US Air Force, and the FAA to provide air defense coverage of our nation’s capital In 2005, hedeployed numerous times with his unit to provide humanitarian relief to hurricane victims along theGulf Coast

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Gerhard is a creative professional with over 15 years experience

in the field of 3D modeling and animation He was the first artist hired

by Autodesk to test the initial release of 3D Studio in 1990, and spentsix years as the lead writer for the tutorials that ship with the product

He has taught at Santa Rosa Junior College, Napa Valley College,Academy of Art University, Sonoma State University, Sonoma CountryDay School, and Petaluma High School; and has lead countless classesand demonstrations of this software throughout the world He has alsobeen an author, illustrator, and technical editor for books on 3ds Maxfor Pearson Education, Wiley, Macmillan, and other publishers Heholds a BA in Practice of Art from UC Berkeley

ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWER

Corné van Dooren designed the front cover image for this book.

Having been given a brief by friends of ED to create a new design forthe Foundation series, he was inspired to create this new setup com-bining technology and organic forms

With a colorful background as an avid cartoonist, Corné discoveredthe infinite world of multimedia at the age of 17—a journey of dis-covery that hasn’t stopped since His mantra has always been “Theonly limit to multimedia is the imagination,” and this mantra keepshim moving forward constantly

After enjoying success after success over the past years—workingfor many international clients, as well as being featured in multimedia magazines, testing software,and working on many other friends of ED books—Corné decided it was time to take another step inhis career by launching his own company, Project 79, in March 2005

You can see more of his work and contact him through www.cornevandooren.com orwww.project79.com

If you like his work, be sure to check out his chapter in New Masters of Photoshop: Volume 2 (friends

of ED, 2004)

ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE DESIGNER

I would like to thank the entire team at friends of ED for making my writing sound far more gent than it originally started: Grace Wong, Nicole LeClerc, Damon Larson, Heather Lang, KariBrooks-Copony, and Laura Cheu.

intelli-A special thanks to Chris Mills for believing in my idea of a book dedicated to the architectural alization industry, and for helping make that dream a reality

visu-Thanks to my mom for beating proper English into me from the time I could write Before any ofthese chapters ever made it to the team at friends of ED, she got first crack at correcting mywriting—and she made plenty of markups

Thanks to my long-time friend and business partner Brian Zajac, who keeps me steered in the rightdirection with all things graphical

Thanks to my friends at Visarty and Catapult, whose 3D services helped my business stay in tion during the crunch phase of this book If you need some good subcontracting work done, theseare two of the best companies out there Their work can be seen in the gallery of this book.Last but not least, I would like to thank Randall Stevens (ArchVision/VisMasters) and Jeff Mottle(CGarchitect.com) for their support of this book and the donation of valuable content

produc-Brian L Smith

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I feel fortunate to be part of the 3D world at a time when it appears that the real world is pletely embracing our work My long-time friend Brian Zajac started in the 3D business a long timeago, when a typical workstation cost $100,000, and a simple animation that today would take onlyminutes to render took weeks He gave up 3D and turned his sights to a career in web design where

he wouldn’t have to wait so long to see the fruits of his labor Many architectural visualization panies struggled to survive these early days of 3D, when the software lacked the quality that manyclients demanded, and the cost of equipment was a great a burden to manage But just like the con-version from hand-drawn architectural blueprints to computer-aided drafting in the 90s, 3D visual-izations have gained the necessary backing to make our work the standard—before long it will bethe norm Now anyone with enough drive and desire can start a 3D visualization business from theirown home with just a single computer With new developments in chip technology on the horizon,such as the much anticipated Cell chip, the near future promises even greater power for all of us tobuild better scenes and render them in a fraction of the time it takes today Before you know it, wewill be able to render our scenes in real time!

com-The idea for writing this book started sometime in the first few days of teaching myself 3D StudioRelease 4 for DOS I was amazed at all the books available for users in the entertainment industry,yet not one could be found for those of us in the visualization industry I wasted countless hourslearning things I found out only later that I didn’t need to know, and I made up my mind that ifsomeone else didn’t have a visualization book on the market when I had learned the program, Iwould write one myself And here it is I hope you can benefit from what I believe to be the foun-dation for those of us using 3ds Max for architectural visualizations

INTRODUCTION

The tutorials within the chapters are designed to maximize the clarity of selected featuresand the speed at which you can learn the material Whenever possible, you’ll be asked toreset 3ds Max and create scene elements from scratch, rather than simply opening precon-structed scenes By taking you through a tutorial that starts from scratch rather than a pre-constructed scene, you'll be apt to feel a greater sense of confidence that the steps in thetutorial work independently of any pre-arranged settings or elements Also, I’ve kept the com-plexity of the tutorials to a minimum and incorporated mostly simple objects (such asprimitives) so that you can gain a greater sense of clarity of what exactly is going on The endresult is a tutorial that maximizes the transfer of knowledge in a minimal amount of time

Layout conventions

To keep this book as clear and easy to follow as possible, the following text conventions areused throughout:

Important words or concepts are normally highlighted on the first appearance in bold type.

Menu commands are written in the form Menu ➤ Submenu ➤ Submenu.

Screen text is used to draw your attention to on-screen elements in the 3ds Max interface.

GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX Part 1

Quick Start 1

GETTING STARTED

If you’ve ever been frustrated with computer books that require extensive readingbefore giving you the knowledge to get your feet wet, fear not—the Quick Starttutorials in this book will allow you to jump right in and get soaked with knowledgerelevant to architectural visualizations There are six major parts to this book, each ofwhich begins with a Quick Start tutorial designed to familiarize you with the materialpresented in subsequent chapters Each tutorial is a continuation of the previoustutorial, and walks you through the creation of a virtual 3ds Max welcome center.The final product of the combined tutorials will be a ten-second animation of thewelcome center

This first tutorial, “Getting Started,” is intended to be simple enough to be completed

by someone with absolutely no experience with 3ds Max 8 It is also sophisticatedenough to allow you to quickly set up 3ds Max and your new scene, similar to theway veteran users in the architectural visualization industry would The remainingtutorials build upon the material in the preceding chapters and allow you to jumpright into the next major part of the book, although it is possible to complete all sixQuick Starts before reading any chapters

Approximate Completion Time: 30 minutes

Following is a list of the Quick Start tutorials that begin the six major parts of this book:

Quick Start 1: Getting StartedQuick Start 2: Getting Started with Modeling Quick Start 3: Getting Started with Materials Quick Start 4: Getting Started with Lighting Quick Start 5: Getting Started with Cameras and Animation Quick Start 6: Getting Started with Rendering

Images are provided for nearly every step of the tutorials, and annotations are included showingexactly where you need to click on the screen Whenever a left-click is called for, the circle annotation

is provided; right-clicks are designated with a diamond-shaped annotation

Before starting the tutorials, you will have to download the Quick Start support files from the friends

of ED website, www.friendsofed.com These files include a 3ds Max scene with a few preconstructedelements and images used in the materials that are applied to the objects in your scene There are alsofiles for each subsequent Quick Start tutorial that you can use in lieu of the files that you save alongthe way The ultimate goal of these tutorials is to walk you through some of the most important fea-tures, and eliminate, as much as possible, the need to use the same commands over and over So let’sget started!

The very first thing you need to do is download some support files needed for this tutorial and savethem to a unique folder within the 3dsMax8 directory

1. Create a folder named Friends_of_Ed in each of the two directories, 3dsMax8\scenes and3dsMax8\images, as shown in the images below

2. Go to www.friendsofed.com

3. At the top of the website, click books.

4. In the list that appears, click the link Downloads to the right of Foundation 3ds Max 8 Architectural Visualization.

5. Click the file link named Scene files and save to your computer Click the file named Image files and save to your computer.

6. Unzip Scene files into the 3dsMax8\scenes folder you created and then unzip Image files into

the 3dsMax8\images folder you created.

9. Click the Add button.

10. Go to the 3dsMax8 directory and highlight the Images folder

11. Enable the Add Subpaths option.

12. Click the Use Path button twice This tells 3ds Max to always look in the Images folder when it’s

looking for support files referenced in a scene Click OK to exit

Next, you need to set up 3ds Max to use architectural units.

13. Click the Customize menu and select Units Setup.

14. Select US Standard, Feet w/Decimal Inches.

15. Select Inches for Default Units, and click OK to exit.

Rather than starting a 3D scene completely from scratch, you’ll open a scene with some existinglinework to speed up and facilitate the creation process for this tutorial.

16. Press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+O and open the file named QuickStart01.max, located in the3dsMax8\scenes\Friends_of_Ed folder 3ds Max opens a scene with four viewports

You’re going to change the layout of the viewports so that there are two large viewports rather thanfour small ones This will make seeing and working with the objects a little easier

17. Right-click the word Camera, shown in the upper-left corner of the Camera viewport This

opens the Viewport Properties menu

18. Select Configure from the menu This opens the Viewport Configuration dialog box.

19. Click the Layout tab.

20. Select the viewport layout that shows two rectangular-shaped viewports, one above the other,and click OK to complete the command The viewport layout changes to two viewports.

The last configuration you need to make is to change some shortcut buttons that give you access to

powerful features in 3ds Max called modifiers.

21. In the Command panel, on the right-hand side of the screen, click the Modify tab.

22. Click the Configure Modifier Sets icon The Configure Modifier Sets menu opens

At the top of the menu, a check must be displayed next to Show Buttons, but not next to Show All Sets in List (as shown in the following image).

23. If a check is not displayed to the left of the Show Buttons label, click the label—if a check is

displayed, press the Esc key on the keyboard to close the menu

24. Click the Configure Modifier Sets icon again.

25. If a check is displayed to the left of the Show All Sets in List label, click the label—if a check is

not displayed, press the Esc key on the keyboard to close the menu

26. Click the Configure Modifier Sets icon one final time.

27. Select Configure Modifier Sets from the menu This opens the Configure Modifier Sets

dialog box

28. In the left-hand Modifiers window, scroll down in the list to the area labeled MAX STANDARD,

and highlight the word Extrude Click and drag the Extrude modifier from the left-hand

window into any of the eight available modifier shortcut slots on the right-hand side of thedialog box

29. Repeat step 28 for the following modifiers, which you’ll use throughout the Quick Start als in this book As shown in the preceding image, these are the Edit Mesh, Edit Spline, UVW Map, Lathe, Smooth, Optimize, and Turbo Smooth modifiers

tutori-30. In the top-right corner of the dialog box, type My Buttons in the Sets drop-down field, and

click Save Click OK to close dialog box This saves your shortcut button layout You can save

multiple layouts and select a layout from the drop-down list later

Before ending this tutorial, let’s make one more change to the viewports

31. Activate the Front view by right-clicking anywhere in the viewport If a menu appears at yourcursor’s location, then the viewport is already activated If so, press the Esc key to close themenu.

32. Press C to change the Front view to a Camera view You’ll use a preexisting locked camera inthe scene to prevent inadvertent view changes to the viewport you’ll be working in most often.Clicking and dragging in a viewport that’s not locked can easily cause the viewport’s perspec-tive to change

33. When your view changed to a Camera view, it should have also changed to a shaded view, aviewport setting known as Smooth + Highlights If it did not, press the keyboard shortcut F3 to

change the Camera view from wireframe to shaded (Smooth + Highlights) Now you can see

surfaces in your scene Your viewports should look like the image that follows

34. Click the Zoom Extents All button in the bottom-right corner of 3ds Max This maximizes all

your views, except Camera views In this case, it only changed the Top view

35. Click the File menu and select Save As The Save File As dialog box opens to the

Autodesk\3dsMax8\scenes folder

36. Name your file MyQuickStart01.max for use in the next Quick Start tutorial

This concludes Quick Start 1 In Quick Start 2, you’ll jump right into the creation of your virtualwelcome center!

Chapter 1

The interface of any computer program is the means with which you command theprogram to perform a task It stands to reason, therefore, that an interface should bedesigned in a way that allows the user to command the program as quickly and effi-ciently as possible Did Autodesk succeed in creating that perfect interface? They did

a great job; however, the default interface was created to benefit all 3ds Max users,not just those specializing in architectural visualizations This chapter shows you how

to best make use of the interface provided, and Appendix C demonstrates how topick up where Autodesk leaves off, by showing you how to customize the 3ds Maxinterface to your specific needs

Why put customization in an appendix at the end of a book? Simple Until you have

a firm grasp of at least the fundamentals, you won’t know how to best customize theinterface, and you’ll probably end up changing it anyway That being said, this chap-ter will focus on how to interact with the program as it is

Autodesk did an outstanding job of making the 3ds Max interface user-friendly andefficient As with many programs, there are numerous ways to tell the program to dothe same thing The trick is knowing which way is best—and this 3ds Max user

defines best as the way that’s fastest It’s a cliché, but time is money.

NAVIGATING THE 3DS MAX INTERFACE

The interface elements

There are eight main screen interfaces through which to communicate with 3ds Max and get yourwork done, as shown in Figure 1-1 They include the Menu bar, toolbar, Command panel, viewport,Lower Interface bar, quad menu, floater, and dialog box But before you can even use them, you have

to work through at least one of two other interfaces: the keyboard and the mouse Most users relyalmost completely on the mouse—at least at first—and although using the mouse is a must in manyways, you should never overlook the power and usefulness of the keyboard

Figure 1-1 The eight main screen interfaces of 3ds Max

Most commands in 3ds Max can be executed with shortcut keystrokes For example, to change theactive viewport from Top view to Left view, simply press L Keyboard shortcuts make using the key-board a fast and efficient way of executing commands If you find yourself using the screen interfaces

to execute the same commands over and over again, it would be wise to invest a small amount of timelearning the keyboard shortcuts for those commands and try using them for a while to see how ben-eficial they can be Refer to Appendix D to see a list of all of the keyboard shortcuts relevant to archi-tectural visualizations If a shortcut doesn’t exist for a particular command, Appendix C will show youhow to create your own

The mouse is also a critical interface through which you work One feature on a mouse that’s anabsolute must, as any serious user would agree, is the scroll button (often in the form of a wheelbetween the left and right buttons) This additional feature allows you to pan and zoom, which areprobably the two most frequently used commands in 3ds Max Without the scroll button, you have tointerrupt other commands to execute a zoom or pan

A scroll button gives you two additional benefits First, you can easily rotate your view by dragging themouse while holding the Alt key and the scroll button on your mouse Second, if you press and holdboth Ctrl and Alt, you can zoom in and out of your scene by dragging the mouse up or down

Menus

Although most commands in 3ds Max can be executed through the use of menus, the time needed toexecute this way is much greater than with other interfaces With the exception of a few tools notfound in any other interface, I don’t use the menus at all

Notice the underlined letters in the default menus shown in Figure 1-2 You can use the keyboard toquickly open a menu by holding the Alt key and pressing the key of the letter that’s underlined Youcan then execute a command by pressing the key for an underlined letter of a submenu command.Holding the cursor over a submenu command that has an arrow to the right of it opens another sub-menu for that command I dislike menus so much because it takes several keystrokes or precise andslow movements of the mouse to get to the command you want There are better ways For this rea-son, I avoid using menus whenever possible and won’t spend time covering them here Certain fea-tures that can only be accessed through the menus, however, will be discussed in the chapters thatcover those features

Figure 1-2 The default 3ds Max menus

Figure 1-3 The Main toolbar