using 3DS max 6 book from Philly's tuts - questions?

[AlienBZ]

The Max Bible came today. One of the things I learned from it is how to make the jail cell block floor plan (a *.tiff) file) show up in my max viewport, but both the top and bottom parts of this floor plan .tiff image was either cut off in the (its in the "top" viewport) and I've created a new jail cell door, this time I selected the "front" viewport in which to make this latest cell door, and this time its not laying flat on the ground like the ones I created before, this jail cell door is standing straight up like a door should. And yes, I converted it to "editable poly" but I still (tried in vain) cannot select the individual jail cell bars in order to create the open space where the door is supposed to go - what am I doing wrong/how exactly do I get the individual bars to be selectable so I can delete them and thus create this doorway?

 

And although I tried (in vain) I don't know how to make the cell block floor plan image larger/smaller so I can see the whole floor plan and not just the middle portion - how do I do this?

 

EDIT - I finally figured out how to apply the red plastic texture to that biological waste barrel that I was talking about a couple of posts back -

 

Now the barrel is starting to look (and feel like to the viewer) a plastic waste container.

Edited October 9, 2012 by AlienBZ

[Cad64]

I still (tried in vain) cannot select the individual jail cell bars in order to create the open space where the door is supposed to go - what am I doing wrong/how exactly do I get the individual bars to be selectable so I can delete them and thus create this doorway?

 

Ok, here it is, as simply as I can describe it. I don't know what your cell bars look like, so I'm just illustrating the procedure on one single bar.

 

1. In "Edge" selection mode, select all the vertical edges of all the jail cell bars. I'm assuming they are all grouped together in one complete object?

 

2. Click the "Connect" button, set "Segments" to "1" and click the check mark. This will place an edge through the middle of all the bars.

 

3. Switch to "Polygon" selection mode, select the bottom half of the cell bars, (where the door will go), and then click "Detach".

 

4. Your cell bars, (where the door will go), will now be separated from the rest of the bars and you can use those separated bars to create the cell door.

[Cad64]

I don't know how to make the cell block floor plan image larger/smaller so I can see the whole floor plan and not just the middle portion - how do I do this?

 

How are you inserting the floor plan image into Max?

 

The best way to do this is to load your floor plan image into an empty slot in the material editor and then apply it to a flat plane. Just make sure your flat plane is the same dimensions as your floor plan image. To find out the dimensions of your image, just take a look at the "Statistics" when you load the image, then make your plane the same size. The image I have selected in my screenshot below is 1885x600, so I would make my plane 1885" x 600". After you apply the material to the plane you can resize the plane using the "Uniform Scale" transform tool.

[AlienBZ]

Ok, here it is, as simply as I can describe it. I don't know what your cell bars look like, so I'm just illustrating the procedure on one single bar.

 

1. In "Edge" selection mode, select all the vertical edges of all the jail cell bars. I'm assuming they are all grouped together in one complete object?

 

Yes, my jail cell bars are all one solid object. I tried looking in my newly-arrived Max bible how to get into the selection modes, it sort of says "options," but I cannot even get to that. How do I get to "options" or the selection modes?

 

Stumped.

 

EDIT - just discovered I can resize the cell block floor plan (by accident) - now I can see the whole floor plan. Also, accidentally discovered how to resize the cell bars object (so no parts are cut off as it was last night).

[AlienBZ]

While waiting for help with the jail cell, I went on to another tut (tutorial 3.5 modeling an alien body). I got the *.tif images to load & show up in my viewports, created the Standard Primitive Box to create the alien's body, but my box is off-center from the alien body in the images, and although its parameters are correct, the box is smaller than the alien's torso, although I tried to drag from the shoulder down to the opposite hip when I created this box. Where did I go wrong? How do I fix this?

 

And in trying to sculpt the box to match the body in the images (after converting to editable poly) I made a mistake and a gray box/bar appeared above my work area. How to I fix this?

[AlienBZ]

To fix this "gray bar" mistake, I tried creating a new alien (this one is called Tiger mom), the first one I posted before this one is called "Alien me", but this gray bar was still there. And still it doesn't look like the Tiger Mom alien body's body (the box I created, same as the first alien) is centered on the image, and Convert to Editable Poly was still grayed out. Help?

[AlienBZ]

EDIT - Having gone deeper in this book from Philly, I found out that it, too, like the other book from Ohio, also pertains to how to use Max to model characters, buildings, terrain, etc, in order to make a movie (film making).

[AlienBZ]

Tried starting a new project (same Philly book) this time tut 5.1 modeling the generic man. Have tried to create the circle, converted to editable spline but cannot seem to get the number of vertices to increase, even though I found my way to the refine tool (I think I did). Then tried to pre-shape splines to make it look like a cross section of a man/boy's torso but it looks like I gave my character a misshapen spine/torso. Also my creation (got as far as step 6 in this tut) looks like a flat plane, not like the real rib cage/chest/waist of the real-life torso. It seems the more I try to fix my mistakes the worse the spine shape gets. How do I fix it/what do I do to make it look like a real-life torso instead of just a flat circle?

 

(also, that "gray bar" is no longer in my work area).

[Cad64]

Yes, my jail cell bars are all one solid object. I tried looking in my newly-arrived Max bible how to get into the selection modes, it sort of says "options," but I cannot even get to that. How do I get to "options" or the selection modes?

 

I thought I already explained this before, but here it is again:

 

1. Select your object

2. Click the "Modify" button

3. Choose your selection mode

[Cad64]

I can't teach you how to create a character here in the forum. That is a huge subject and there are entire books dedicated to that area of 3D modeling. All I can do is point you to tutorials. Here is a good one: http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/max/joanofarc/joanmenu.asp

 

I wish you would slow down and finish one section of the book before immediately jumping to another section every time you get stuck on something. You need to learn how to troubleshoot. Figure out what's wrong and how to fix it before moving on to something else.

 

Creating a character is a tremendous undertaking and you really need to have a good understanding of the Max interface and tools before you start venturing into that arena. I would recommend that you completely finish the jail cell before returning to the characters.

[AlienBZ]

Thanks. Will do so. Regarding this character tut (joan of arc) that you linked me to, I only chose these tuts that I think would directly pertain (no armor/sword tuts) to my kind of characters, and I saved them as pdf's on my flash drive. Is it ok or permissible to omit some of the tuts from this link you gave me?

[Cad64]

It's up to you as far as how, and what, you want to learn. But it would be more beneficial for you to follow through the complete tutorial and build the entire character, start to finish. That way you will learn all the tools and techniques for creating characters, instead of just the things that you think are important. The skills learned in any tutorial can, and will, carry over in to other areas of modeling. So just because you don't think that learning how to build armor or a sword are relevant to your characters, that doesn't mean that the techniques being used to build those items won't be useful at some point later on down the road.

[AlienBZ]

i tried creating my first character using that tut you linked me to, but it seems as if i'm going to have to pick up a book on character modelling for christmas. so i returned to the jail cell tut and this time i was able to follow the tut faithfully and cut out the doorway. for now, i think i'll stick to using this book from philly to get my hands wet.

 

but how do you add the little boxes that serve as the hinges? it says to apply box mapping, where do i find that - could it be in my max bible?

[Cad64]

but how do you add the little boxes that serve as the hinges? it says to apply box mapping, where do i find that - could it be in my max bible?

 

Box mapping? Mapping typically refers to UVW procedures, not modeling. Are you sure it doesn't say "box modeling"?

[Cad64]

Box modeling for beginners: http://magicwand3d.blogspot.com/2008/09/box-modeling-for-beginners-3ds-max.html

[AlienBZ]

I created the door, hinges and lock for the jail cell, then I grouped them (or at least I tried to) now I've applied the brown metallic (stainless steel of an "alien" metallic brown color) texture (as this jail cell is intended (by me of course) to be part of a scene in a 3DS max movie I'm hoping to use these models in) to the cell bars, but somehow the door, hinges and the lock are no longer selectable as individual objects.

 

How do I ungroup them?

 

I clicked on "ungroup" but it seems it did nothing - help?

 

See screenshot.

[AlienBZ]

Just discovered I had a working model of these jail cell bars that I finished today (this is a sort of my spare copy that I created) that I didn't realize I had made (and had saved) but - here it is, the finished product.

[AlienBZ]

Got as far as Step 6 in the Jail Cell block tut - here is my latest screenshot.

 

But how exactly do I resize these pillars to the floor plan?

 

Or resize (And reposition) the floor plan to these pillars in order to match them all up?

 

How exactly do I make these models (cell bars, pillars) line up and match up exactly with the floor plan?

Edited October 15, 2012 by AlienBZ

[Cad64]

How exactly do I make these models (cell bars, pillars) line up and match up exactly with the floor plan?

 

Just Move, Scale, and if necessary, Rotate them into position. You do know how to use the Transform tools, right?

 

Also, when you create an object like a pillar, set the Length, Width & Height Parameters accordingly so that you don't have to do any resizing later. Just create the pillar and then Move it into position. Then Clone it and Move the next one into position. Keep Cloning and Moving until all of your pillars are set.

[AlienBZ]

It just so happens that the blueprint of the jail cell block floor plan is so small, so this means I'll have to make my pillars, cell bars, etc, very small, won't I?

 

I'm sure there is a way to resize the floor plan so it won't be so small, one way I know of doing this is, make the viewport cover the whole work area (I even did this once (accidentally), but then I switched to quad viewport mode afterward), making that one viewport take up almost the whole screen, and then move/resize the bars/pillars, etc according to the floor plan, am I correct about this?