xl 3ds max 6 Bible
Using Vertex Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166
Assigning vertex colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166
Painting vertices with the Vertex Paint modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1166
Tutorial: Marking heart tension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1168
The Assign Vertex Color utility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1169
Rendering to a Texture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1169
General Settings and Baking Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1170
Output Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1171
Tutorial: Baking the textures for a dog model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1172
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1173
Chapter 51: Max and Visualization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1175
Max and Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1175
Autodesk VIZ support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1175
HDRI File support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1175
Using AEC Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1176
Foliage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1176
Railings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177
Walls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177
Doors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1177
Stairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Tutorial: Add stairs to a clock tower building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1178
Using Architectural materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1179
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1181
Chapter 52: Max and Special Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183
Tutorial: Creating a Black Hole
Using Particle Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1183
Tutorial: Creating Icy Geometry with BlobMesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1185
Tutorial: Using Caustic Photons
to Create a Disco Ball . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1186
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1187
Appendix A: What’s New with Max 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1189
Appendix B: Installing and Configuring 3ds max 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1193
Appendix C: Max Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1201
Appendix D: What’s on the CD-ROMs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1217
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1221
End-User License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1255
P A R T
Learning the Max
Interface
I
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
In This Part
Quick Start
Animating a Monster
Truck at the Beach
Chapter 1
Finding Your Way —
Exploring the Max
Interface
Chapter 2
Seeing it All — Working
with the Viewports
Chapter 3
Working with Files and
XRefs
Chapter 4
Customizing the Max
Interface and Setting
Preferences
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
Quick Start:
Animating a
QS
C H A P T E R
✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
Monster Truck In This Chapter
at the Beach Introducing the
Quick Start project
Creating the
background scene
W hen you first got your hands on 3ds max, you were probably
focused on one goal — to create cool 3D images and anima-
tions. I know many of you bought Max to make money, claim a tax
Importing the
truck model
Adding scene props
write-off, earn a way to Hollywood, or impress your girlfriend or
boyfriend, but I’ll just ignore those reasons for now. The goal is to Applying materials
create something cool.
If you’ve perused this book’s Table of Contents or thumbed through Loading a background
its many pages, you’ve seen sections on modeling, NURBS, dynamics, image
and other topics. But if you’re like me, you don’t want to wade
Animating the truck
through tons of material before you have something to show off to
with keys
Mom. (Actually, if you’re like me, then you’ve opened straight to the
special effects section, in which case you won’t be reading this.)
Adding lights
The purpose of this Quick Start is to give you a taste of what Max can
do. This soaring view of the software from 20,000 feet is intended to Zooming out
show you the big picture before you delve into the details. It exposes the camera
you to the most common features and whets your appetite for the
more in-depth chapters to follow. Adding special effects
This part of the book is intended for those new to the software. If Rendering the
you’re an experienced user, then your mom is no doubt already final animation
impressed with your work, so you can happily advance to whichever
chapter appeals to you. (Forgive me for catering to the “newbie,” but ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦
we were all beginners once.)
Relaxing at the Beach
No matter where you’re from, warm sunshine appeals to everyone, so
this Quick Start (as the chapter titles suggests) takes place at the
beach. Now, monster trucks aren’t a regular sight at the beaches that
I frequently visit, which brings me to the example concept. The first
step in any animation is to have a clear concept in mind and, I hope, a
4 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
fleshed-out storyboard. (I’d include a figure of my storyboard for this example, but it wouldn’t
impress you, especially as the first figure in the book.)
The concept is a classic misdirection piece. This type of story is designed to get the viewer
to position his line of thinking in one direction, and then to reveal more information that
realigns his thinking. So, we start with a monster truck that is digging and grinding through
a rough terrain as if it were part of a monster truck rally. The camera then dollies out of the
scene to reveal a child’s sand bucket and shovel on the beach where the monster truck is
actually a toy.
Now that we have a good concept for the animation, we need a game plan for walking through
the example. To do this, the Quick Start is divided into several consecutive tutorials. Each
successive tutorial builds upon the previous one, and the final goal is to complete a rendered
animation. The tutorials include the following:
✦ Creating the background terrain and scene
✦ Importing a digital model of the monster truck
✦ Adding props to the scene
✦ Applying materials to all the scene elements
✦ Loading a background image
✦ Animating the truck’s movements
✦ Adding lights to the scene
✦ Adding a camera to the scene and animating its motion
✦ Adding special effects
✦ Rendering the final animation
This Quick Start is divided into separate tutorials, with each tutorial containing a series of
easy-to-follow steps. These steps are intended to show you the results of performing certain
Max operations, but feel free to deviate from these steps to create your own results. Being
creative and exploring the software is the best way to learn.
On the After each of the following tutorials, I saved the scene file. You can find these files on the
CD-ROM book’s CD along with the examples in the Quick Start directory.
Tutorial: Creating the background terrain and scene
Our first step is to create the major elements that make up the scene. This gives the scene a
perspective that the other objects can reference. The major elements of the beach are a
ground plane of sand and another for the water. These can be created easily using Max primi-
tive objects.
To create Plane objects for the sand and the sea, follow these steps:
1. Select Create ➪ Standard Primitives ➪ Plane, and drag in the Top viewport to create a
Plane object. In the Name and Color rollout of the command panel, name this object
Sea. Click the color swatch in the Name and Color rollout, select a blue color in the
Object Color dialog box, and click OK.
Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Animating a Monster Truck at the Beach 5
2. Click the Select and Move tool on the main toolbar (or press the W key), hold down the
Shift key, and select and drag the Transform Gizmo’s Y axis downward. This clones the
“Sea” plane object. Position it directly below its original so that the cloned object’s top
edge is aligned with the “Sea” object’s bottom edge. A Clone Options dialog box
appears; make sure that the Copy option is selected, type the name Sand for this
object, and click OK. Click the object color swatch in the Name and Color rollout of the
command panel, select a light brown color in the Object Color dialog box, and click OK.
3. With the “Sand” plane object selected, open the Modify panel and change the Length
and Width Segment values to 20. This adds more faces to the “Sand” object. Then set
the Scale Render Multiplier value to 4.0.
4. Select Modifiers ➪ Parametric Deformers ➪ Noise to apply the Noise modifier to the
“Sand” object. Change the Z-axis Strength in the Parameters rollout to 10 to add some
slight bumps to the “Sand” object.
5. Click the Select and Rotate tool on the main toolbar (or press the E key), and rotate the
“Sand” object two or three degrees about its Z axis in the Left viewport.
6. Click the “Sea” object to select it, and change its Scale Render Multiplier value to 4.0.
The Scale Render Multiplier value changes the scale of the object when rendered, giv-
ing us a long stretch of sea and sand.
The results of this tutorial created a shoreline that isn’t perfectly straight, and the sea meets
the sand along the entire edge. To see the results, select the Perspective viewport and choose
Rendering ➪ ActiveShade Floater. This renders the active viewport in the ActiveShade Floater
window, as shown in Figure QS-1. This tutorial is saved on the CD as Sea and sand.max.
Figure QS-1: The shoreline was created using two simple Plane objects.
6 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
Tutorial: Importing the monster truck model
Accurately modeling an object such as the monster truck can take many months of skilled
work, which brings me to my first tip of modeling — don’t rebuild it when it’s already been
done for you. You can find many repositories of digital models — from Web sites to software
dealers, to the CD-ROM in the back of this book. An untold number of models exist, covering
almost any possible subject matter you could think of. The difficult part is wading through all
the available models to find the exact model you need, and if it doesn’t fit your exact needs,
you can always modify an existing model to fit your needs.
Note The monster truck model was created and provided by Viewpoint Datalabs, and the book’s
CD-ROM includes a version of this model that you can use.
Follow these steps to learn the easiest method for modeling:
1. Insert the CD-ROM from the back of the book, and then choose File ➪ Merge.
The Merge File dialog box appears.
2. On the CD-ROM, locate the vp3417.max file in the Quick Start directory and click OK.
The Merge dialog box appears and lets you select which objects to merge with the
existing scene. Click the All button, and then click OK.
3. The monster truck appears in the center of the viewports at the grid’s origin. The truck
is made up of many different objects, and moving them all together is easier if they are
grouped together, so while all the truck objects are still selected, choose Group ➪
Group. In the Group dialog box that appears, name the group Monster truck and
click OK.
4. If you look at the truck object in the Left viewport, you can see that its wheels are
below the “Sand” object. To reposition the truck, select the Zoom Extents All Selected
button in the Viewport Navigation Controls in the lower-right corner of the interface.
This button is found as a flyout under the Zoom Extents All button. Or you can just
press the Z key. This zooms in on the selected object in all viewports.
5. Click the Select and Move tool on the main toolbar (or press the W key), and drag the
truck upward and to the right in the Left viewport. Press the Z key again to center the
truck in its new location. Continue to move the truck to the right in the Left viewport
until it is in the center of the “Sand” plane.
6. Click the Select and Rotate (E) button on the main toolbar, and rotate the truck 90
degrees clockwise in the Top viewport.
This orients the truck so that it is parallel to the water.
We now have our main actor in the scene and it is correctly positioned. This tutorial is saved
as Merged monster truck.max, and Figure QS-2 shows the truck positioned on the seashore.
Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Animating a Monster Truck at the Beach 7
Figure QS-2: The monster truck is in position and ready to go.
Tutorial: Adding scene props
Now that you have the scene elements and the main actor in place, you’ll want to dress up
the scene with other props that add to the scene. For this animation, these items are key and
provide the clues that help inform the viewer that the truck is really just a toy. The scale of
these objects is important.
As scene props, I decided to go with a child’s sand pail and shovel. These items make it obvi-
ous that we’re at the beach and that that truck is only a toy. I’ve already created the shovel,
but you get a chance to model the bucket using a spline and the Lathe and Shell modifiers.
To add scene props to the scene, follow these steps:
1. Select File ➪ Merge to open the Merge File dialog box. Locate and select the Toy
shovel.max file in the Quick Start directory on the CD-ROM. Then select the Toy shovel
object, and click OK.
2. With the shovel selected, press the Z key to zoom in on it in all viewports. The shovel is
too big, so click the Select and Scale button on the main toolbar (or press the R key),
and drag in the Top viewport until the shovel part is about as big as the truck object.
Then click the Select and Move button (W), and drag the shovel in the Top viewport
down and to the left so the shovel is positioned slightly in front of the truck.
8 Part I ✦ Learning the Max Interface
3. Select Create ➪ Shapes ➪ Line to enter line drawing mode. Then click in the Left view-
port to create the profile of a toy pail. I created it with five clicks, including a lip at the
top of the pail. Right-click in the Left viewport when you’re finished to exit line drawing
mode. Name the Line01 object Toy pail.
4. With the line object selected, choose Modifiers ➪ Patch/Spline Editing ➪ Lathe to apply
the Lathe modifier to the “Toy pail” object. In the Parameters rollout that appears,
enter a Degrees value of 360 and click the Align Min button.
5. In the Perspective viewport, the pail appears black instead of the object color, indicat-
ing that there is a problem with the object’s normals. You could enable the Flip
Normals option to fix the problem, but instead, select Modifiers ➪ Parametric
Deformers ➪ Shell to apply the Shell modifier.
6. Click the Select and Move (W) button on the main toolbar, and drag the pail object in
the Top viewport until it is positioned next to the shovel object.
7. Finally, press the Z key to zoom in on the “Toy pail” object.
Figure QS-3 shows the toys positioned on the same beach as the truck. This file is saved as
Toy shovel and pail.max.
Figure QS-3: The viewports display the shovel and pail after being imported into Max.
Chapter QS ✦ Quick Start: Animating a Monster Truck at the Beach 9
Dressing the Scene
Once you have all the models positioned within the scene, you can add realism by adding
materials to objects. Materials are created and applied using the Material Editor. Open this
separate dialog box with the Rendering ➪ Material Editor menu command (or by pressing the
M shortcut).
Another detail that helps the scene is adding a background image. To do this, use the
Environment & Effects dialog box opened with the Rendering ➪ Environment menu command
(or by pressing the 8 shortcut).
Tutorial: Applying materials
Try a quick smooth rendering in the ActiveShade window by selecting the Perspective view-
port and choosing Rendering ➪ ActiveShade Floater to open the ActiveShade Floater window.
Rendering the scene computes the effects of the lights, material, and environment into a sin-
gle image. This process could take some time, depending on the complexity of the scene, but
the ActiveShade window is a quick rendering window that lets you see the results of materi-
als and lights. The results of the ActiveShade rendering, shown in Figure QS-4, show us a cou-
ple of things. First, the objects are positioned in the water; second, we need to apply materials
to liven up the dull object colors. Well, don’t worry; you’re just getting started. You can close
the ActiveShade window by clicking the close icon in the upper-right corner of the window.
The next step is to use the Material Editor to apply some materials to the objects in the
scene, except for the monster truck, which came with its own materials.
Figure QS-4: The ActiveShade Floater window gives us some feedback
on the progress of the scene.