3DS Max Beginner help

Facepalm Ranger

Hey everyone. I unfortunately learned Maya in Uni once graduating I discovered no video game companies use maya and generally use zbrush and 3ds max so my degree is null, void and a huge waste of time.

I'm trying to teach myself 3DS max but, unfortunately I'm in china at the moment (until january) and can't access youtube for all the wonderful tutorials it has so I was hopping you guys may help me.

I've gone through the user base tutorial and so far know how to;
Create a box.
manipulate it's shape very simply.
apply a texture to it that doesn't match up to it's UV map.

What I'm looking to learn is;
How to create subdivisions
get rid of this weird white box guide line that's around my geometry
find the UV map function so that I may correctly add a texture to it. ie; make a dice.

If anyone can direct me to a tutorial that doesn't rely on videos or can tell me themselves that would be great.

Also browny points to who ever can inform me a way to learn zbrush legitimately without shelling out lots of money for software I don't know how to use yet, that would also be appreciated but, not required at this moment.

Thanks in advance!

JordanN

Facepalm Ranger wrote: »

Hey everyone. I unfortunately learned Maya in Uni once graduating I discovered no video game companies use maya and generally use zbrush and 3ds max so my degree is null, void and a huge waste of time.

Woah, woah, what? I thought it was the opposite. 3DS Max is barely used in the game industry with more studios taking up Maya.

This whole channel is dedicated to 3DS Max. Here's a video showing the uv mapping process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDKUkqTKt80&list=FLXow_l6k4j8gKKxh_giAwZw&index=36

I heard about the white box problem but I forget how to disable it. Watch this tutorial and I think this guy tells you how.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaXtO7t9Ufo&index=27&list=FLXow_l6k4j8gKKxh_giAwZw

Facepalm Ranger

Hey man, thanks for your replay. I'm kind of at my wits end here with who uses what program now, so I'm sticking with what I learned from when I interned at a studio which was "what? you didn't learn Max or any sculpting program?" and 3DS max is making me tear my hair out.

Also thank you for your links but;

Facepalm Ranger wrote: »

unfortunately I'm in china at the moment (until january '15) and can't access youtube for all the wonderful tutorials it has so I was hopping you guys may help me.

If anyone can direct me to a tutorial that doesn't rely on videos or can tell me themselves that would be great.

Here I am in china with all the time in the world to learn this stuff and no access (currently) to youtube.

huffer

You can read through this. Mainly, 3dsmax uses modifiers in a stack for different functions, like Meshsmooth for subdividing, Unwrap UVW for unwrapping and accessing the UV editor. They're all under the Modifiers menu. To get rid of the bounding box go into Viewport settings by clicking under the Perspective name in your viewport.

Justo

Like huffer said, I think the main difference between the two programs is that Maya uses nodes and Max uses modifiers. But to be honest, I find them to be pretty much the same thing - the biggest difference would be that Max' modifiers actually let you go back and forth in history, while in Maya you're mostly limited to Undo.

Just like in Maya you'd see your nodes pile up in the Channel Box / Layer Editor (things like "polyExtrudeFace1" or "polySplitRing2"), in Max you see your modifiers stack in the Modify tab. And things like Maya's Delete History aren't that necessary anymore, since modifiers here actually work and don't mess up your mesh as often as Maya will do when you have many nodes piled up. Then again, I think pros usually collapse their stacks whenever they can, since the more stacks you have the slower max will run.

I'm a beginner like yourself, but hopefully I got that right. I hated Max at first and I still despise AD as a company, but when it comes to modeling I can safely say I love Max much more than Maya.

Facepalm Ranger

Thanks man! I managed to make a UV map but, resizing the UV faces was an utter night mare and seemed very uncontrollable and then when I went to save the map out so I can create my own texture, it only saves as a UVW file instead of something I can open in photoshop.

3ds max is getting very frustrating.

Facepalm Ranger

Justo wrote: »

Like huffer said, I think the main difference between the two programs is that Maya uses nodes and Max uses modifiers. But to be honest, I find them to be pretty much the same thing - the biggest difference would be that Max' modifiers actually let you go back and forth in history, while in Maya you're mostly limited to Undo.

Just like in Maya you'd see your nodes pile up in the Channel Box / Layer Editor (things like "polyExtrudeFace1" or "polySplitRing2"), in Max you see your modifiers stack in the Modify tab. And things like Maya's Delete History aren't that necessary anymore, since modifiers here actually work and don't mess up your mesh as often as Maya will do when you have many nodes piled up. Then again, I think pros usually collapse their stacks whenever they can, since the more stacks you have the slower max will run.

I'm a beginner like yourself, but hopefully I got that right. I hated Max at first and I still despise AD as a company, but when it comes to modeling I can safely say I love Max much more than Maya.

Thanks for the words, it's a bit soothing to hear haha. By anychance have you learned know how to reshape UV faces on the UV map so that they keep their proportions? and how to save as any other file other than UVW?

Dubzski

Press J to get rid of the weird white box around the object.

If you want to learn ZBrush without buying it/ don't to be naughty just for training. Check out Sculptris .

To render your UVW map press open uv editor, go to your tools. Right at the bottom is render template.

Oh also give this tute a go it is FANTASTIC to learn 3DS Max Sub-D modeling, is good for beginners and people wanting to brush up on their modeling technique knowledge alike - http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/model-a-detailed-high-poly-fire-hydrant-in-3ds-max--cg-1717

Feel free to msg me if you get stuck. My job is being a 3D Generalist for 3DS Max, so i have a lot of random knowledge about it haha.

Facepalm Ranger

Dubzski wrote: »

Press J to get rid of the weird white box around the object.

If you want to learn ZBrush without buying it/ don't to be naughty just for training. Check out Sculptris .

to render your UVW map press open uv editor, go to your tools. right at the bottom is render template.

Thanks man! I'll go check it out!

oooh sculptris looks like the very thing I was after 'my first scultping program' Thank you so much!

I also managed to create a cube with two sub-divisions in max. go me!

Justo

Nice link Dubzski, I'll check it out too hehe

To render UVWs, it's like Dubzski said.


As for reshaping UV faces, I think that's what Tools>Relax is for You can find that in the UV Editor window (to open that window, put a "Unwrap UVW" modifier to the object you wanna make its UVs). Relax has some options too, and when my UVs get a bit complex I usually play with all of those options till I decide on a result.

Max is the only program in which I've worked more than a few hours with its UV tools, and I like them...I think it's pretty simple, it's all matter of knowing where to cut your seams, and then play around with some unwrapping tools, like Mapping>Flatten Mapping, or Pelt Map, and then to Relax to get your proportions right.

To be sure all your UV shells are proportional between each other (if that's what you're going for, sometimes you wanna make some shells bigger than what they really are...), there's a button for that under the "Arrange Elements" tab to the right in the UV Editor. In there, you click a button called Rescale Elements and bam, all your shells are proportional.

And there're a lot more nifty tools to use in Max when working with UVs. I haven't had time yet to check out Textools, but I think almost everyone uses it for making UVs in max Apparently it's a super awesome plugin.

Facepalm Ranger

I'm using my free digital tutors account to learn some basics. I made a screw! 3DS Max no longer seems as scary!

Since it's taken me from before 12 and it's 5pm now, I'm gonna give it a rest and tomorrow try make a pen on my desk to see if what I learned today sunk in. Still don't know how to texture in 3DS max though.

Aslo thanks Justo, I'll try the UV stuff again tomorrow!

Facepalm Ranger

Thanks for the tip on sculptris. I did this on my first ever try. Fucked up the hands though...

Facepalm Ranger

I think I may have the UV mapping down. I made a bad gameboy!

Facepalm Ranger

So I made a UV map of my pen and textured it....buuuuut, when I render it it looks like this;


so my questions are;
how do I get that lovely grey background in my render?
how come my render is showing the wireframe?
why is my texture all washed out like someone's pushed down the opacity?

Usually google would help but, I'm in china and youtube is blocked here...

3DS max is no longer scary yaay!

Dubzski

Keep up the progress .

For the wireframe you probably have the Wire check box ticked. You can find it in the Material Editor (Hotkey = M) under Shader Basic Parameters.

To change your background press 8 to bring up you Environment and Effects box. You will see under common parameters you can change the colour / load maps etc. However if you want a different colour i'd advise taking your render into photoshop and compositing it that way.

Facepalm Ranger

Dubzski wrote: »

Keep up the progress .

For the wireframe you probably have the Wire check box ticked. You can find it in the Material Editor (Hotkey = M) under Shader Basic Parameters.

To change your background press 8 to bring up you Environment and Effects box. You will see under common parameters you can change the colour / load maps etc. However if you want a different colour i'd advise taking your render into photoshop and compositing it that way.

Thanks for your help dude! Wire box wasn't checked so I checked/unchecked it and then boom it worked. My gosh is rendering and saving as a PNG great for making images easily. I also love how in the view port the texture looks shitty and blurred but so damn crisp in the render. Which was always the opposite for me with Maya. I love Max now!

Dubzski

No worries dude, i know how frustrating it can be to find all the little things in these programs.