Some Tips for 3D Max

1.  Realise the amount of time it takes to create an object - the police building has taken me a long time to figure out how to create and, put together in the best way.  Keeping in mind that when using group it can cause many issues with animation at a later date.  The grouping also removes the ability to make changes to the original drawing.

2.  Save your work on very regular basis, there is nothing more upsetting than have to redo all the work again - and it always seems to happen when its going well not when you've done it all wrong and need it to go back.

3.  Try to find the right shape to start working with in the beginning - if I had used a cone shape for my building I would have already created that perspective feel with my shape.

4.  Try to include as much details as possible on the models before using the symmetry - mirror option.

5.  Use a blue print model on a plane to create realistic dimensions to the 3D creations,  I used a similar shape just to get the dimensions right then carried on adding to make my own version of the spinner vehicle. Change the image to transparent.

6.  View your creations in various different view ports : left, right, top, bottom and perspective, manipulating in just one view can create all sorts of weird contortions that you may not be able to remove, meaning you will need to start again.

7.  Use the render window to view your work, it makes you feel great when it finally comes together.

8.  SAVE YOUR WORK (again)

Some tools that I used to manipulate the models include:

Extrude and Bevel : which I used to on the spinner and building to extend out parts of the original shape to give more details

Connect : to allow me to create extra lines to create smaller faces this gave the extra lighting effects to the body of the spinner.

Swiftloop : I used this to create particular edges/vertices on the spinner when creating the first basic shape, I could then select the vertices on that cut to shape to the reference plates.

Chamfer : This was used on the neon lights to give rounded edges, this works better when there are more vertices to work with.

Smooth : I used this to smooth face selections on the  spinner vehicle this worked better for me than the meshsmooth (that smoothed the whole vehicle which was not the result I wanted).

Attach : attaching two shapes together.

Lens Effect - Glow - for my neon lights to give a lighting effect coming from the shape.

UVW Map - This was used to fit the bitmap to a small selection of faces on the spinner.

Symmetry - mirror - to give a mirrored image of the my complete model allowing me to have both halves showing the same details.

Clone - Instance : This copying method allowed to me to continue making changes to the oringinal model and this being replicated in the clones.

There are many more tools that I could use in the future now that I feel more confident in creating and manipulating shapes into models.

Lighting and wire frame

I have previously used the omni lighting but this is some examples of using other standard lighting and photometric lighting which is what I will use to eluminate the buildings in my animation.

Here I have used the photometric lighting :

NB : the lower left view has had the active shade turned off, if this is left on then you can see the effects of the lighting as they are added.

I have altered the cone to show just the wire - this is in material editor select wire option.

the lighting parameters have been changed and the shadows turned to blue so that the effect can be seen this to harsh on the torus and stairs but works on the cone - (the light source is over the cone)


I used this trutorial to help with the text : after creating my text, I used 'shell' in the modifier list to give a deeper 3D appearance - I used this with the sphere it created a larger seperation between the inner and outer frame wire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTaPzltchXg

My Text and wire frame sphere so far - I will try to get the text revolving with the frame during the animation stage.

 

Now to add some lighting:

 

 

I used self illumination on the material editor, and added a number to the material id, then used the environment and effects, adding a lens effect with glow and adjusted the colour and illumination size and intensity.

 

Model 2  Neon lights

 

 

 

 

 

 

Street Scene - Police building model 1

This took some time to get my head around how to achieve this :

first the police building - I did not want to spend time trying to create all the detail on each side of the building therefore I drew an octagon and deleted all but 2 segments (this then became the original) from this I found I can create instances, which will replicate any details I create/change on the original.

Seems to have worked althought I need some more tutorials to succesfully add the maps and lights.

The building was created as a hexgon - 8 sides added, then all but 2 of the sections deleted this then created an original that I started to work on, once created I copied instances and placed them together and grouped them to create the police building

There are problems using group: once the group is created the original becomes part of the group and then can not be edited to change the instances.

Animation with a group is also difficult - I will find out later, although this is a static building I may not need to animate it.

I was going to use the symmetry option (mirror) -  remembering my childhood days of playing with mirrors I, but I needed a copy not a mirror image.

I found another image to work with which made me realise that a cone shape would have given more perspective to the building.

I have continued with the orginal model and added a map, spheres, colour and details

 

 

I have had to add more edges to to enable adding the smaller building lights, I tried quick slice but found an easier way - by selecting the larger egded area where I needed more edges - using the connect option with the edit edges area I could select how many edges I required.

 

I detached the large illuminated sphere before I copied the building - I will attach this at the end.  I did not want to create copies of the sphere - 1. because it would not be needed and 2. to keep down the file size.

 

I cloned the model and used the instance option, changed the pivot point and rotated the new section around into place, I continued with this as shown:

 

 

 

I made a few adjustments with the mapping

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Neon Lights

Here's a link to help me create my neon lights:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QAHIYCYB3o

3ds Max Glow Tutorial by :

presbarkeep

this tutorial gives 3 different ways to create a neon effect.

Week 3

Using Material Editor

Enjoyed bringing the object to life by adding maps

The maps were created in photoshop and saved as bitmaps.

The teapot - converted into an editable poly and the elements selected - each element is given an id 1, 2, 3, 4.

Opened up the material editor - chose the slate material editor - multi/sub object then 1 to 4 double click and add bitmap to match the id you want to cover - then the single yellow dot is taken to the object. 

The teapot is rendered and you can see the fantastic creation.

Now for the tea party

adding a metalic look to the knot - give the object a colour select the anistropic option in shader basics, change the specular highlight - in this case specular 72 & anistropy 80 - drop the map onto the opject should turn grey. Render to see effect.  (the background image is the same image on the knot and these are reflected in the cup.

Creating the glass effect - look at map3 the background colour on the object set to black (diffuse) the map on refraction and the map browser on refraction (nb there must be a background setting to reflect on the glass.)  the cup handle is a torus this was not cut but could be.

I used the omni lighting infront - better effects are achieved when more than one light is used and they are placed to create some nice shadows.

Note to self - the donut tool does not create a donut the torus does!!

You can also select an area on your shape to add a map to it - select group of segments using ctrl, once select add map to area - check in render view.


INFORMATION JUST FOUND OUT

Create a symmetric shape with only one side created -
Editable poly - modify list - symmetry - mirror -  copies everything on one side to the other or on top or below.

Ideas and Mood Board

Ideas from Blade Runner the introduction scenes -
The police spinner traveling down to the city through smoke and building into the street scenes with the neon lights.

Model ideas

Police Building

Police Spinner

Neon Lights

Mood Board

bolean, array and loft

The cheese was made from a box - shape changed using the moving the vertices.  creating spheres and incorporating them into the cheese shape.  By selecting the cheese shape only and using the probolean - subtraction option, picking out the sphere shapes creates the indented sphere image.

The green hexagon is a line shape with the loft option using the star shape.

If using the line tool to draw a shape use the front view - gives a more 2d view and is easier to create the shape.

The blue boxes have been created using the array in the tools menu - the options allow you to choose how many images you want to replicate, the rotation and the space between them.  Once created I could then select the indivdual or all the images to move them.

The puple helix is in the splines options along with the ngon, donut and the star.  Donut would create a tube effect around a line using the loft option.