Introduction to Autodesk 3D Studio Max

Week 1

I had my first session on 3Ds max by being introduced to the various short keys that control the interface.

UDK UNITY

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3Ds Max interface

Right Click for quad menu, varies on object

Middle click is used to the viewpoint around, middle click itself pans, middle click and alt rotates the viewpoint, middle click CTRL and Alt zooms in and out the viewpoint (more smoothly than scrolling)

Z is Zoom to extents, which shifts the camera to face central to the selected object.

Alt-W maximises the selected viewpoint,

G Removes the grid on the selected viewpoint.

T/B/F are shortkeys to switch the viewpoint to facing Top, Bottom and front.

P is perspective witch switches between Perspective and Orthorgraphic on the selected viewpoint.

Realistic simulates how the light will cast shadows in the scene.

F3 shows the wireframes of the objects in the viewpoint.

F4 shows the wireframes of objects with the faces still on show.

The Object list box shows all the items in the scene with their given name, this is useful when there are loads of items in the scene and the user wishes to select specific items.

When selecting an object in Modify the parameters of it’s details showm the box for example shows it’s height, Length and Width along with it’s segments.

Adding Segments to the object gives it more complexity by adding polygons.

The button to the left currently stating "all" constrains the selection of items in the scene, clicking on Geometry will force 3Ds max to only select the geometry in the scene and not select things like lights or shapes.

Q toggles through the different selection methods

The Window/Crossing icon chanings the way to selecting multiple objects by either dragging the whole marque over the object or just the marque touching the object.

Transform moves the selected object/s by it’s axis which is effected by dragging the red/blue/green arrows, dragging over one arrow for example the the green arrow will transform the object on it’s Y axis, dragging the square touching two arrows will transform the object on those two axises, the central square transform the object freely from it’s Axises.

The rotate tool rotates the object by it’s pivot, like transform it rotates it by the axis the user is selecting and the user can select one, two or three. There will also be digits over the object showing the amount of rotation.

The Scale tool enlarges or shinks the selected object.

There is a drop down box with is by default on view that changes the way the gizmo changes objects in the scene, with it on view the object transforms, rotates and scales at the angle of the viewpoint

The Pivot point center icon changes the way multiple objects are rotated togething, the user can either rotate the objects on one single pivot or rotate each object on their own separate pivots.

The mirror tool flips the object by one or two of it's axises.

The Material editor (M) is the menus that controls the colour and texture on objects by importing maps

F9 is Render which produces a final image

Area to Render, renders an adjustable portion of the viewpoint, helps save time

Viewpoint lock tells the renderer to only render one viewpoint no matter what viewpoint is selected.

Render Setup

Time Output, single render the single selected frames on the Timeline, Active Time Segment renders the entire timeline and Range allows the user to pick the frames they want rendered.

Output size customises the render size and quality.

1 Unit = 1 Inch…. Or 1.3 Inches

Work in the power of 2
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096

The Snap tool transforms and rotates objects by exact points on the grid

S is transform snap and A is rotate snap.

The group command fuses the selected objects into a group that cause them to all react as one.

The selection sets icon allows the user to quickly put selected objects into names groups that don’t fuse together, this saves time when you need to select the same objects quickly.

The manage Layers tab puts selected objects into layers which is similar to grouping but makes it easier to control the objects in a single box with features like hide, freeze and render.

With one of the boxes converted to an editable poly the attach feature connects other objects to become part of the poly, when the box is converted to an editable poly 3Ds max no longer sees it as a generic box. Attaching object A to object B combines the two into one new object with two elements of A and B.

When the user converts a standard primitive an editable poly 3Ds Max no longer registers it as a generic shape such as a box or a cone.

Week 2

The 7 key shows the total amount of Polygons and vertices are in the scene, going into viewpoint configuration and statistics allows 3Ds Max to display more stats such as how many triangles and edges of the total objects and even the selected object.

Modifier mode
There are five different types of selecting objects

Vertices, Edges, Borders, Polygons and Elements.
It takes two vertices to make an edge and at least three to make a polygon

By declicking edges only in an objects object properties and having the viewport in edged faces mode the object will show the hidden lines that 3Ds max is using to turn the polygons into triangle.

Each vertex has its own specific number/

Selecting multiple will show the amount selected.

CTRL selects multiple and Alt deselects.

Ignore back facing prevents selecting vertices that are behind polygons from the view, turning this off will allow the user to select whatever vertex lies within the marque.

Using the break command splits a vertex into multiple vertices as this “breaks” the object to separate the edges, notice the vertex count has went from 8 to 10 as the corner is split.

Using the weld tool does the reverse to this by fusing the vertices together into one vertex, we select the weld settings box to give us the weld amount which tells 3Ds max what vertices to weld by their distance.

Target weld does the same but instead of using distance the user manually drags one vertex to another to fuse.

Converting a sphere to an editable poly and extruding all of it’s vertices will create a spiked sphere by adding four vertices beside each vertex and extruding the middle vertex.

Using the chamfer tool slices vertices into multiple vertices to form new side facesto the where the edge is.

The result on this box is untidy as 3Ds max is attempting at what it believes is how the tris should form, Using the connect tool the user can correct this to make the edge connect in a suitable manner.

Notice the edges in the centre of the face are now level.

Create will create vertices in space where the user clicks.

Collapse is like weld, except it will fuse vertices even if they are faces between them.

Make Planar squashes the object into a plane.

Soft Selection allows the user to transform the selection by a fall off, meaning the vertex (edge or face) that is selected will be manipulated the most with the vertices (edges or faces) moving with it but less concentrated.

Shift and click edges rings, which selects all the edges that is circular on the object. Pressing connect now will add a new edge (or split one face into two) that is perpendicular to the selected edges.
Double clicking an edge will make a loop selection by selecting forwarding lines.

With the connect preferences tab it will give the user options to add more edges to the selection, pinch the edges that transforms the distances between each edge, and will also slide the new edges to either sides.

It is also possible to extrude edges.

There is an interesting method of creating models by using “edge copy” which works by selected an open edge and shift click and dragging to form a peeled like shape.

Inset add lines and edges within a face that are the same shape of the face, for example using inset on a square face will add a smaller square inside.

Using boarder allows the user to select the edges of open spaces, we can use tools like cap to quickly fill in the open space with a polygon.

Outline transforms the distance of the face’s edges closer to or further from each other.

Extrude causes a new set of polygons to rise from the selected polygons, using a negative value will cause the selected faces to the opposite direction which would be into the object.

Extruding polygons by local normal tells 3ds max to extrude the polygons in the directions the face is facing.

Extruding by polygon (which isn’t recommended) causes each polygon to extrude on its own.

Hinge from edge allows the user to make an extrusion at an angle of an edge.

All polygons by default are only visible on one side when rendered, when the cube was created the faces on the exterior are visible, looking at the faces inside when rendered will be invisible. The flip tool toggles the face side visibility; one really effective use of this is for making levels in 3Ds max as the user can construct the interior from outside and then flip the sides so the faces are visible when a player is inside the object.

Using the attach command from an editable poly will allow the using to add other objects to become that editable poly’s element.

We can use the bridge command to fuse to objects together by adding polygons between the two, good for windows.

Smoothing groups controls how the smoothness of multiple faces appear when rendered, with multiple faces as a plane are rendered with the same smoothing group it will appear normal and flat, if the user was to move one of the faces of several with the same smoothing group it will result in the faces looking smooth and create the illusion of no edges.