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York
artOverlord
Joined: Dec 05, 2004
Posts: 417
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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 Posted:
Jul 06, 2005 - 09:12 AM |
 
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I wanted to make a new modeling tutorial for beginners. This tutorial demonstrates how to model a park bench in 3dmax.
For starters start a new scene or reset 3ds max so you have a fresh clean start on this model.
Step 1
Ok first thing is to click the create menu on the top right of your screen and click on Extended Primitives (See Below)
Step 2
Next we want to click champher box and in the top viewport click and drag out and make a box shape and make a total of 3 clicks to finish the whole process for a champhered shape. Don't worry about the size put in the legth and width amounts just like I have on my screen shot and you should be ok. (See Below)
Step 3
Now with the champhered box selected hold the shift key down and click the select and move button at the top of your screen and drag out a total of 5 copies then click ok. (See Below)
Step 4
Next click the select and rotate button at the top and rotate it along the
x-axis 16.11 degrees. (See below)
Step 5
Now we will start to build the back of the park bench by selecting the first champhered box we made and copying it up the back of the chair. While selecting and rotating to get our desired look. You can position these how you want because this is one of the key parts of how the back of your chair design will look. Be creative you don't have to position the way I have them but the tutorial flows better if you do. (See Below)
Step 6
Next we will start the frame of the park bench. Click the shapes button next to the create button (circled in red below) and click line tool (See below)
Step 7
Now in your left viewport click and drag and click and drag until you create a line along the back of the chair and along the botton of the chair like I did (See below)
Step 8
With the line selected click the modify tab again and click vertex. Next you will want to click renderable and all the other boxes below that. Also change the sides and thickness like I have on my screenshot (See Below)
Step 9
Now in your front viewport make 3 copies of your line by holding down shift and click the select and move button. Move them along the x-axis and position each on so they look like the image below
Step 10
Select all three lines and right click in you viewport in a grey section and click isolate selection. This just makes it easier to model and see the next part of the park bench (See Below)
Step 11
Now in your shapes menu make another champhered box. Start out in your top viewport and zoom in and drag out a box again click and drag a total of three times (See Below)
Step 12
Fill in your length ect to match what I have on my screen. We are makin the legs to the park bench so this determines how high the bench will be. (See Below)
Step 13
Next with the leg selected click the modifier tab again and put a edit poly modifier on it. (See Below)
Step 14
In your left viewport zoom in on the leg and then click on vertex. Now to clean up this model a little and make it less poly we will delete some of the vertices. Click and drag out till you have all the top 3 rows selected then hit delete on your keyboard. (See below)
Step 15
Now that your vertices have been deleted there is a gaping hole in your mesh but thats easy to fix. Click border under your vertex and edge option and the click the top line of the leg. Next click the cap button under the Edit borders section. (See Below)
Step 16
Next we will make the bottom of the bench leg. Zoom in on the leg in your perspective viewport (See Below)
Click polygon mode to the right of your vertex and edges ect mode then click the very bottom polygon. (See Below)
Now click the bevel button in your edit polygons menu. Click and drag twice over and over until it looks like the image below.
Step 17
Ok were almost done modeling this bench. Next in your top viewport click your bench leg and make 3 copies of it as well. Then make 3 more copies and move them to the back of the bench. Try to make it look like the image below.
Step 18
Right click in your viewport in a grey section and click unhide all. Next I will show u how to make the arm rests.
Modeling The Arm Rests
Step 1
First you want to start with selecting a line (See Below)
Step 2
After selecting the line you need to start off in your left viewport and you need to click once at the back of the bench to start the line the click again at the start of the curve. Then make 3 more clicks and move downward with your mouse a litt;e bit at a time until u get the shape below.
Also make sure to make sure that u check renderable and the two other options below it just like the image below
Step 3
Next go into the modifier stack of the line and select segment (See Below)
Step 4
Next I would recommend smoothing out all the vertex's except the last one and the end of the spiral. You do this
by clicking line then clicking vertex. Then click the vertex you want to smooth then right click and choose smooth (See Below)
Step 5
Ok now what u want to do is put a edit poly modifier on the line (See Below)
Step 6
Next click the vertex on the bottom of the spiral and move it up a tad until it looks like the image below
Step 7
Get into your perspective viewport and zoom in a tad until u can see the two polygons that are below the vertise u just moved. Click polygon mode then select
the two polys like the image below
Step 8
Now click extrude or Alt "e" then click and drag upward till u meet the bench. Also make sure you are in your left viewport (See Below)
Step 9
Almost done all u have to do is make 3 or 2 copies which is up to u and move them like the image below
Materials & lighting
Wait a minute this bench looks like crap it does'nt look real by any means. To make this bench look real we have to put materials on it and light it correctly. In the next few steps I will explain some important things about lighting and rendering so you can get this bench to look as real as possible.
There are many ways to texture something in 3ds max but I will only explain a couple methods in these next few steps.
Start off with a couple of images of wood. Or create your own texture in photoshop that looks like wood. Old wood looks the best in my mind. But any kind of wood will work you just have to map it correctly.
Step 1
Hit the "M" button on your keyboard and then click the little button next to Diffuse. (See Below) Next double click bitmap. The reason why we are choosing bitmap is because we are using a image to map on our chaphered box to create a wood effect.
Step 2
Next hit the "H" key on your keyboard and this pulls up every thing in the scene select all the chaphered boxs and then click select. After that hit the assign material to selection button in the material editor. If you don't have it up hit the "m" key( See Below)
Now the bench should have some wood on it but it does not look real at all yet. Its because you need UVW Mapping on it. UVW Mapping is a modifier that uses different display methods to display your image or material over your object.
Step 3
Individually select each champhered box and go to the modify tab and scroll down until you see UVW Mapping or just hit the "U" button on your keyboard to get there faster so you don't have to scroll all the way down 
You need to make sure that you do this step on every individual chaphered box. (See Below)
Step 4
Now in the parameters roll out click box. This places box mapping on the chaphered box. The reason why we use box mapping is because we are mapping a picture of wood to a box shape. If we were trying to map a picture to a shere we would use spherical mapping ect. (See Below)
Now it should look ok. Next we need to put some sort of metal material on the legs of the bench. Now it's very easy to create a realistic metal material in 3ds max but I like to just use the ones 3ds max provides for you.
Step 5
Bring up the material editor by pressing the "M" key again. And now click the get material button (See Below)
This pulls up a whole selection of different 3ds max materials. Scroll down until you see the metal ones and select one of your preference.
I chose the plain metal black material (See Below)
Step 6
Individually select each bench leg and apply a UVW mapping modifier to it just like you did in the last few steps. Also apply box mapping cordinates just like like you did before.
The bench looks pretty real now we just need to light it correctly. Now in 3ds max there are soooo many ways to light and render a scene. So please keep in mind this is not the only way to light and render a scene.
Step 7
In your top viewport click the lights button (See Below)
Make sure to select the skylight. Also make sure the cast shadows is sleceted. Place the sylight in the middle of your bench (in the top viewport) for the best results (See Below)
Step 8
Next get into you left viewport and make sure the sylight is selected and drag it up until its about 10 feet about the chair. You can kinda play how high the light is in the scene for different looks. (See Below)
Key things 2 remember:
Using a skylight in your scene makes your scene appear as if it were in the normal daylight. Skylights are very good for realism renders BUT it does take a long time to render any scene if you use the sylight so be aware. Remember when lighting a scene make sure that all your lights in your scene add up to 1.0 multplier. Unless your going for a different look. Theres always artistic freedom
Step 9
Ok render time Click renderer on the top of your screen or hit f10 on your keyboard this brings up a render dialog box. There is a lot to explain here but I won't get into to much in this tutorial. Click 800 x 600 and click render at the bottom om your render dialog box (See Below)
Now since we chose to light this scene with a skylight this render may take a little while but it way worth it. You should have a image that looks similar to this:
I hope this tutorial was helpful for beginners out there and for anyone who uses 3d. If there is any part of this tutorial that does'nt make sense or you need some help on some part of it feel free to contact me by email at bayork1@comcast.net or send me a private message.
Thanx |
_________________
Mike York
Character Animator
www.yorkanimates.com
Last edited by York on May 09, 2007 - 07:08 AM; edited 6 times in total |
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avalon
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Aug 24, 2005 - 02:50 PM |
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Nice tutorial, but i've got a problem with the zooming in the perspective vieuw  i can't zoom in to a specific place, only to the middle |
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avasek
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Aug 31, 2005 - 04:51 AM |
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i got little problem with edit poligon cos i havent that in selection window, i mean in 13 step, i selected it with clickin right mouse button convert to editable poligon .. but in perspectiw viev i dont see lines, i see normal model like before conveting to editable poligons, and i cant modelite 'leg' to nice 'leg' i got 3dsmax6 maybe i should have v7 huh ? tell me how to do modelite 'leg' |
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munkey9379
artOverlord
Joined: Nov 09, 2004
Posts: 519
Location: Denver
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Aug 31, 2005 - 11:13 AM |
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i dont think you should model through the perspective view but if you want to see the lines you just have to right click on the word perspective in the top left of the perspective view and click edged faces or you can press F4-that might be different in Max6, im not sure. |
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One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. - Nietzsche
"Some people are like Slinkies...Not really good for anything but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs!"
"The only thing that screws up the world is the attempt to fix it." -Terry Milligan |
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SithSnake
artOverlord
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 364
Location: Montreal
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Aug 31, 2005 - 02:59 PM |
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no, its all the same |
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York
artOverlord
Joined: Dec 05, 2004
Posts: 417
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Sep 02, 2005 - 06:51 PM |
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Sorry for the lack of getting back to this I havent been on the site for a while 
To awnser some of your questions
Avalon - On the bottom right of your screen there is a icon that looks like a magnifying glass and a square dooted line goes around that.
Click that Also u can hold cntrl and hit the + or - button I hope that helped.
Monkey - Thanx for helping Avasek
*** In the future please make sure to send me a private message or a e-mail if u need help throughout the tutorial or if u have any questions *** |
_________________
Mike York
Character Animator
www.yorkanimates.com |
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Gues
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Sep 03, 2005 - 12:21 PM |
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Hi! Well you said that the tutorial is for beginners, but at the end you said that you just applied some materials. Like all the beginners know how to do it. So please could you finish the tutorial and show the materials that you applied in detail. Thanks. |
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York
artOverlord
Joined: Dec 05, 2004
Posts: 417
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Sep 03, 2005 - 05:40 PM |
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Yeah no problem I will update it as soon as I can |
_________________
Mike York
Character Animator
www.yorkanimates.com |
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Sep 05, 2005 - 12:11 PM |
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Thanks  |
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York
artOverlord
Joined: Dec 05, 2004
Posts: 417
Location: Los Angeles, CA
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Sep 05, 2005 - 12:39 PM |
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The tutorial has now been updated
Guest: My Pleasure |
_________________
Mike York
Character Animator
www.yorkanimates.com |
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DigitalPutty
artOverlord
Joined: Nov 11, 2004
Posts: 1285
Location: Denver, CO
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Sep 05, 2005 - 04:33 PM |
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Arent skylights Grrrrrrrrrrreat!?  |
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My signature is a WIP.
Parsons Brinckerhoff Project Visualization. BOO YAH! |
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SithSnake
artOverlord
Joined: Nov 05, 2004
Posts: 364
Location: Montreal
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Sep 05, 2005 - 05:52 PM |
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dont you have to mod the uvmap? the texture looks way too stretched out over the wood plank. |
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Red Eye Jedi
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Nov 01, 2005 - 01:33 PM |
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Nice tutorial - I used it but I just get a black BG when I render <_< I think you forgot to tell us how to add the floor. |
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DigitalPutty
artOverlord
Joined: Nov 11, 2004
Posts: 1285
Location: Denver, CO
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Nov 01, 2005 - 01:43 PM |
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This is how I add a floor ...
Create a plane in the top viewport.
To create the effect of not being able to see your floor but yet it still catches shadows ...> in the material editor create a new material (select an unused ball). Then under the maps rollout click the box that says 'none' next to opacity (new window will pop up) ... select Gradient Ramp. Your material editor will change and a gradient (black to white) will show up in the window. Below the gradient it will say "Gradient Type" with a drop down box ... select 'radial' from the drop down list. Then, use the up arrow below the 'texture balls (hehe)' above where it says 'gradient ramp' ... (this will take you back to the initial material editor screen). Now, up above where it says "standard" (below the balls again) ... click that. Again, a new window will pop up ... select "Matte/Shadow" from the list. Your ball will disappear but that is ok ... apply the texture to the ground. And ... render. Wallah!
To change your background color/texture.... select Rendering> Environment from the tool bar up above ... IT will open a new window with two tabs ... under the environment tab ... there is background. Under color ... you can change the color of your background. OR, you can use an environment map.
Add some light ... and boom! Nice pretties!
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My signature is a WIP.
Parsons Brinckerhoff Project Visualization. BOO YAH! |
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Sgt_demo
artNinja
Joined: Feb 08, 2005
Posts: 99
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Nov 01, 2005 - 02:37 PM |
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