Tom's 3dsMAX Tutorial Thread (Image Heavy)

[Z-trooper]

Created on request.

Hope you find it useful.



Geometry:

Optimization

Cloth / Organic modeling and sculpting within max

People often use the boolean tool, but to my great joy some of you have discovered the issues with using this and here is one way of doing it yourself. This only works on orthogonal intersections though. There are other techniques for other scenarios but I can't be bothered to teach them all right now.

When using floating geometry, I like using this extra "lip" to make it appear to be connected to the underlying model.

As you can see in my example several different effects can easily be created.

Will add stuff from time to time...

[Swe_Olsson]

erm, i see absolutely nothing ?

[Scot]

I see a really big picture
http://tom3d.dk/Tutorials/Render_tutorial.png

[Z-trooper]

Yes indeed there is a picture, image based tutorials are just more handy you can save them to your hdd rather than a forum link

[Hans Martin Slayer]

i see female hoplites..

good work, i'm sure this will be helpful for modellers.

[DeltaFart]

Ok heres a comparision
default:

With Matrox's render method, skylight only

Z-Trooper's Method

[Tim270]

Thanks for this

[Tomato-Rifle]

Thanks!

[Z-trooper]

Geometry:

Optimization

Will add stuff from time to time...

[Tonnie]

ahh yes guilty as charged

[IronTaxi]

haha...yeah...that was a hard lesson to learn..

[Rhino]

I always use to make everything I did in tris, only recently have I moved onto polys but ye, when making non flat surfaces I always go back to doing tris where possible

[Tim270]

Thank you for the tips

I was wondering If I could get some feedback in modeling with tris, Also (to my understanding) most game engines convert your mesh into triangles, but does this matter on flat surfaces where it needs no definition? Could I also get some feedback on this test scene if someone has a min or two, where am I using tris that I dont need to bother doing, where is the connecting wrong etc.

[Z-trooper]

here you are: http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/161/feedback.jpg

you can remove those verticies I have marked as they aren't much needed, as well as the edges connected to them. Other than that it looks pretty solid for a destroyed/ruined wall/corner

[Tim270]

Cheers, Time to attempt getting some meshes into the editor.

[Z-trooper]

Small update on the topic of optimization. Nothing big and fancy, just figured that I would put it up when I needed to explain it in pictures anyway

[Z-trooper]

Yet another mini tut, this time on the subject of organic and cloth modeling / sculpting WITHIN max (no zbrush or mudbox needed)

Expect another tut soon.

[Z-trooper]

New micro tut/technique.

People often use the boolean tool, but to my great joy some of you have discovered the issues with using this and here is one way of doing it yourself. This only works on orthogonal intersections though. There are other techniques for other scenarios but I can't be bothered to teach them all right now.

I have some proper tutorials in the works I will see about finishing them up in the near future.

[Wilkinson]

Lawl. Z-Troop your tuts are beast like

[Z-trooper]

Another micro tip.

When using floating geometry, I like using this extra "lip" to make it appear to be connected to the underlying model.

As you can see in my example several different effects can easily be created.