3ds max question

[verruckt]

Hi hi,

I was trying to make a tiny mod type thing, and I had a small question on modeling. I wanted to make a model of an animal, but I want to do it a certain way. See, um, like... to describe it... If I had a cube, the actual object would be something closer to a sphere. then if I extruded part of that cube the spere would have a ittle bubble coming off. But all the time, I am mainly working with the [invisible to render] cube... I can't remember what it was called to do this nor can I find the tutorial I used so long ago... I really wasn't sure where to ask this either. I wanted to do it this way because it would be easy to scale the polies around when I need to put it in game.

also, I used 3dsmax 6 at the moment...

[Taamati]

what do you mean by your working with "invisible to render cube"?

Try building with a skeleton (of a similar type of animal) imported into your max file so you don't have to worry aboout scaling issues later.

Other than that I'm not sure what you're asking

[verruckt]

Uh, here, I drew a [very bad] picture, the orange is the "non rendering [control] box", and as you extrude things from it the actual mesh, in green, would change, but it would be a much more fluid shape.



As it turns out I just realized that if I make something all boxy add a UVW unwrap and then a Meshsmooth modifier it seems to do that same thing I was going for, but I'd still like to find out how to accomplish the original idea as well.

[verruckt]

I forgot to mention that you can't to anything directly to the green mesh, and it is the one that would show up when rendering(or that you would see in the game in this case)

I should also take a moment to say, it would rock if there was an edit button.

[Dimeola]

What are you trying to make? There are a ton of good meshes available for free on the web. And if not exactly what you needed then they might be a great starting point.
D

[verruckt]

Free Meshes???? That's cheating and people who do that are kinda lame... not to be rude or anything. There are also plenty of tutorials that walk you through doing various techniques and the like... Anyways, doing something like that would be like kicking myself in the balls. I already have to do it alot for textures and it kills me every time.

anyways, I was trying to replace the horses with mini-brontosaurii(eh?) and the elephants with triceritops just for my own amusment and for modeling practice.

[Parmenio]

Make a Box object.

Right click on the object's modifer stack, to Convert to Editable Mesh.

Use the Select and Move tool with shift pressed to drag a copy of the object to the side of the original. In the pop up window make sure to make the copy a Reference Object.

From the modifer stack, apply a Mesh Smooth modifer to the Referenced copy. In the Subdivision roll out select 1 or more iterations.

Now go back to the original Editable Mesh Object and edit it's mesh as you see fit, extruding faces, collasping vertices, etc. The Referenced copy will update automatically the Mesh Smoothed version as you edit the original mesh. The more detail you build into the original mesh the better the smoothed result will be. You can do additional editing directly in the Mesh Smooth Modifer to 'weight' vertices and make certain edges sharper. Once you have the approximate shape you want, you may wish to collaspe the smoothed result into a editable mesh and work directly on that.

[verruckt]

Huh, oddly enouph, that's what I was doing as a 'workaround' thanks for the help.

[Vercingetorix]

You could use editble poly and nurms smoothing. Basicly the same as just adding a mesh smooth on the stack.

[Taamati]

using edit poly and NURMS subdivision on and "show cage" on is the closest you'll get to subdivision modeling that they have in Maya. But that chugs to much and I think using a refernced object with mesh smooth may run better.

[verruckt]

Thanks for the help all, unfortunatly, it looks like it's going to create way more polies than I would like, which sorta defeats the point of doing it since I wanted to be able to create differant levels of detail. I'll prolly just stick with the way i'm more used to and draw a bunch of lines and connect them up. ahh well. It was conveniant for texture mapping though, which is the least fun thing to do ever...


Here's some fun stats on how awful a modeler I am...
Triceritops.... testing w/ differant mesh smooth options(I didn't mess with weighting, but I don't think It would have made much of a differance... also this is 1 iteration which is the smallest you can do)
2034 w/ nurms & quad output
1976 w/ classic
picture

The elephant, 790
picture

I did that more for myself than anyone, max doesn't like to show you all the lines during nurms and quad... sorry for the lack of texture on the elephant, I haven't actually hunted it down yet, I don't really need to either i suppose...

As it turns out I found another thing I really have no clue about is attaching skeletons to models, I managed to fail quite horrifically it turns out since I had overlapping or something. ahh well, maybe some other time.

[Taamati]

I wouldn't ever use mesh smooth of any type for an in game character, especialy for Rome as they are such low poly. Also to see all the edges "lines" using nurms or quads (mesh smooth) click isoline display off. Don't worry so much about Max there is a load to learn, it makes me go like this then I go then I'm like with my self trying to figure out how to get things to work until I just go

So yeah alot of people have the same problems. just gotta keep studying the program.

[verruckt]

yes, 3d studio max is a cruel temptress. I see all the cool things people can do.. and whoa...

yeah, that whole thing was an experiment to see if I could have a shortcut to making levels of details(since I assume thats how R:TW is able to show so many units)... unfortunatly shortcuts don't present themself until you are quite proficiant at things, a lesson learned...

[Mouzafphaerre]

-
Hey Verrückt! Totally OT but:

I should also take a moment to say, it would rock if there was an edit button.

It's available once you're promoted to Member. Show up more often and it'll happen automagically.

Glad to see you're into TW modding.
_

[Taamati]

There is a modifier in Max that can assist in changing levels of detail.

Just add a MultiRes to the top of the stack click generate then say how many polys you want your model to be. It'll keep your UV co-ordinates. But it's not perfect, personally I prefer to do it by hand.

Check it out it's cool

[verruckt]

@Mouzafphaerre: Ahh thanks for clearing that up. I don't want to get side tracked really on other projects but I kinda thought dinosaurs would be fun to see in the game...

@Taamati: That sounds really neat I will definatly have to check it out. You've been a huge help.

[Suraknar]

Hey V, welcome to these parts mate ;)

Dinosaurs could be a fun Sci Fi mod me things :)