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3DS MAX – Techniques on modelling (Exampled on a robot Head)


The Jaw:

Modelling: Build it in planes, half of the jaw, then use symettry and shell to make the whole jaw. For a hard edged jaw or smooth jaw: turn smoothing groups on and off.

Unwrapping Technique: When unwrapping your objects, do it before you add a turbo smooth. The UV map will stay in the correct position when the map is added. Unwrap UVW, then open UV editor. Select all the faces then flatten mapping. This flattens everthing into pieces. In the UV M map you can join pieces together. (By clicking a piece of the model you will highlight the corresponding part on the UV map- This will help you make sense of the unwrap.)  All you do is select your adjacent pieces and set then beside each other, rotating sections as necessary.  Then go to tools- Target weld, and select the vertices that should be connected to each other on the model. Beware that its possible to weld vertices that arent connecting if you arent careful. If vertices weld correctly the green lines on the UV map will disappear.

Maps:  Specular Colour, Specular level, Diffuse, Bump, Raytrace,  (Specular Colour dictates the colour of reflected light; specular level dictates how strong those reflections are). Creating bump maps- start with 50% grey. You can always put a slight bit of noise on your map to remove ‘absolute smoothness’. Black will recede into the object, white will raise up

Use each object as a scale of reference for the next.

Brain: Just a stretched sphere with a cellular texture applied- no unwrap

Dome: The Brass is just a sphere with certain polygons detached, then a shell modifier applied to the outside.  The glass is the detached remnants of the sphere, with 3D Max’ solid glass material. dont shell the glass- it will take longer to render, for no reason. The water is another hemisphere with Max’ water material.

Cog: The model is just standard primitives with the standard Max brass material applied. Put a noise modifier on the material with two similar hues- brown and orange etc, to add a bit of colour variance to the model. Engraving is done by making the engraving texture in photoshop and applying it as a bump map.

Head: Started as a sphere, which was stretched and hemisphered, and then individual faces were removed to get the shape. Then a shell modifier and meshsmooth modifier

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