3D Modelling & Animation: September 2011

Week 2 on 3D studio Max

3 BOOLEAN OPERATIONS EXERCISE

Position a sphere in the centre of a long narrow box, so the sphere is visible on either side of the box,

as in the following picture. Try the various types of Boolean operations: UNION, INTERSECTION,

SUBTRACTION (A-B), SUBTRACTION (B-A).

= BOOLEAN OPERATIONS EXERCISE

To experiment the Boolean tool.

Original:

Union: The two objects became one.

Intersection effect. Only remained the intersected part.

Subtraction A-B effect. (Sphere=A, Retangle=B)

Subtraction B-A effect. (Sphere=A, Retangle=B)

Exercise 1: Done

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5 GROUPING EXERCISE
1. Create four primitives: box, sphere, tube and cone
2. Group the box and tube together into a group called BOX_TUBE
3. Group the sphere and cone together into a group called TUBE_CONE
4. Now group BOX_TUBE with TUBE_CONE to form a group called ALL_SHAPES
5. Use the UNGROUP command on ALL SHAPES, how is the group broken down?
6. Re-create the ALL SHAPES group again
7. Now use the EXPLODE command on ALL SHAPES, how is the group broken down?

=GROUPING EXERCISE

Question 5: When ALL_SHAPES was UNGROUPed, they were seperated into BOX_TUBE and TUBE_CONE

Question 7: When ALL_SHAPES was EXPLODED, they were seperated back into individuals.

Exercise 2: Done

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7 ALIGNMENT EXERCISE
Using ONLY the ALIGN SELECTION window, align a box, sphere, tube and cone as in the following
picture.

=ALIGNMENT EXERCISE

Note: To align selected object right on top of target basically
x, y positions : Current + Target Object = centre
z positions : Curent Object = Minimum, Target Object = Maximum.

Exercise 3: Done

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10 EXERCISE
FRIST: sketch out a plan for a small derelict village for a first person shooter game. Also create rough
sketches of each building, how derelict it is and its overall plan. You should also add a few simple
internal rooms to your building and even two floors if you are feeling adventurous.
You now have all the basic modelling techniques to create houses, fences, and the outlines of ruined
buildings. Do not concern yourself with textures of lighting, only the modelling. Once you have a
sketch of the plan of the village go ahead and start to build it.

= 2D EXTRUDE EXERCISE

First of all, it was to draw the basic plan of the village, which was like the blue print.

Then all the little decorations I would like to have in the village, such as a fountain, barrels, empty houses, abandoned boards, rubbish bin etc. Which I could create with this 2D to 3D technique.

Next, I used the extrude tool and edited the amount (height) to the values that I wanted

There was one part of the fountain which I used a different technique to create,

the LATHE tool. I drew the basic shape with the line tools, then used the LATHE to spin it around.

And then I ended up with this shape that I wanted, it was the centre of the fountain.

After all the basic creations from 2D to 3D by the extrude tool.

I moved on to add lots of decorations in the village. As decorations are often important in a first person shooting game, where you could take cover etc.

Such as these barrels, often seen in shooting game, like explosives etc.

And abandon trucks etc, created by 2D rectangle, then converted to editable poly, Last edited with extrude tools, Chamfer tools etc.

More containers.

Rubbish bin

Fountain.

I also created windows, and the derelict effect with the boolean tools

Some abandoned houses

A stair which would lead to 2nd floor that I would build in the fllowing.

The second floor.

Exercise 4: Done

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(Week 3 blog seems not shown on the blog automatically on my computer)
In case it does not, the following link is week 3
http://1012897.blogspot.com/2011/10/week-3.html

Week 1 First exercise on 3D Studio Max

9 SHIP STEERING WHEEL EXERCISE

Create a ship steering wheel. Just create the basic shape using primitives, do not concern yourself with

trying to model rounded handles, rivets etc,…. Just the basic shape

=SHIP STEERING WHEEL EXERCISE

To create a basic shape of the ship Steering.

First I explored and tried all the different primitives geometries from 3Ds Max, then selected the ones which I found were suitable for the shape of the steering wheel.

First I used the tube to build up the centre shape, then added a slim cylinder for the bar.

By the AutoGrid box being ticked, I was able to build the cylinder on the surface of the tube.

When I built my tube, I edit the value in order to get 16sides, so that when I build the cylinders, I could make sure they were on the right places, as 16 = 8x2, which meant between every 2 edges I would build a cylinder.

Next I only had to repeat the process to get all the eight bars. Last I added a torus into the shape.

Exercise 1 : Done

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12 HOUSE EXERCISE

Create a house with four walls, a floor and a roof and a chimney. The house should also have an

opening for a door and two windows on the front and one opening for a window on either sidewall. No

window is required on the rear wall. The house should be made to a realistic scale.

=HOUSE EXERCISE

To create a basic shape of the ship Steering.

After I was a little more familiar with the tools and primitive shape 3Ds Max provided.

I decided to start this exercise by creating every "parts" of the house and then put them together.

So they would be in a perfect size when I created them.

These parts including 4 walls, a floor, a root and all little parts to be a chimney.

Next I put those parts together in order to have the basic shape of the house.

I used the Align tool and Rotate tool to help me, therefore it would be built perfectly.

Then I started to build more "accessories" for this model. windows parts, door parts, entrance platform etc.

I simply moved them onto the right place.

In following, I started to experiment the "Segs" values, which controls the number of polygons on the geometry. So that I could create the holes as opened windows or doors.

(By right click> convert to editable poly)

At last I found out the perfect combinations on the width and height segs values.

Opening door and window on the front.

And on either side of the side walls

Of course I did not forget the chimney too.

The final model:

In this exercise, I learnt how to convert a mesh into editable poly, editing polygons and using the align tool.

I also learnt to take care of the number of polygons when I built on 3Ds Max, which would be important in the modelling technique. As low polygon models could reduce the loading speed, especially in a game engine.

Exercise 2 : Done

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13 CASTLE EXERCISE

Create a castle: four walls with raised battlements and ramparts, arched entrance, a watch tower on

each corner and an inner keep with an entrance. You may also wish to add a moat and drawbridge!!!

Do not worry about texturing the model just yet! We will cover this in following weeks.

=CASTLE EXERCISE

To build a castle.

Last exercise of this week is to build a castle.

As the house building experience, I built the castle in a similar process.

First was to build all the "parts" of the castle that I would like to have.

Eg: Guard tower, rampart, walls etc.

After that I would put them together to form a castle.

These towers are formed by several primitives, such as cylinders, cone etc

And more importantly, it was the tools the I had used that mattered.

To put all those part together, I used the align tool.

By adjusting the x,y,z positions I could put them together perfectly.

The battlements on the towers, these could easily be created when I converted them into editable polys, then selected the polygons and used "Extrude" tool.

So they looked like the battlements, only point the I had to bewared of was the number of segs when I extruded the polygons.

One of the most important tool I needed was the group tool, because there were many parts to form up a tower, so group tool was used many times in the whole modelling process.

Another tool I used was the Boolean tool, in order to subtract holes on the model.

By doing that I could create the "windows" on a tower.

In the following, I built the entrance with a gate and the bridge.

The entrance was built by the Boolean tool, I subtracted a box n a sphere from the wall.
So that I had the shape of the entrance.
The gate was done with a L-shape primitive, and by the Extrude tool, I formed the shape of the gate.

There was another tool that I used for the pointed end of the gate, which was the outline tool.