Free head modelling tutes

Delaney King

Hi yall.

To celebrate 3December I have conspired with Autodesk to release two modelling tutes over at The-Area. I basically run through how to customise your interface a little and some strip modelling stuff for making a basic monster.

http://download.autodesk.com/3dportal/events/3dec/videos/f_modeling_p1.html

(You will need to be logged in to The Area to see 'em.)

Cybroxide

Great Stuff man! Definitely learned a ton more about max customizing. I was always afraid to delve into it because it looked so complex at first glance! Thanks!

EricElwell

Hey Dave, that's great! I love to check out other peep's workflow, there's lot's of little process tidbits in there and I find that super helpful, especially now as I am trying to get familiar with Max. Thanks a ton! It's greatly appreciated!

Turoid

That helped mee soo much, I've actually never heard and tried the 'bridge' tool before..

Gmanx

Thanks Dave. I'm not a max user, but they were still very insightful - lots of good speed tips.

D4V1DC

Nice tutorial, I love the bridge tool saves some time.

Also I was noticing you where switching between what would be the low poly to highpoly, was that switching to a layer? Or a mesh smooth hotkey?

Great stuff we all need more max tutorials.
Nice to see your work flow processes at least for organic pieces.

cheers,

D.

Psyk0

Great tut, very helpful to see you in action .

Ryno

He's using N as a hotkey for Nurms/MeshSmooth toggle.

Good stuff, Dave.

diZzyWalnut

Nice one. I'm still working under Cinema 4D & Body paint-
time to go in 3DS MAX.
Cool tips .

Thank You, Dave.

gavku

Some nice tips in there cheers Dave...

conte

can't look up videos, i will appreciate very much
if u guys write here what he doing there, like Ryno did.
thanks for time!

Delaney King

Yep, I was using a shortcut key I defined for 'toggle NURMS preview' you can find it under editable poly in the keyboard settings.
I set mine to 'N' for NURMS. (n is usually set key mode) -Dont confuse it with NURBS- which are different. NURMS just means mesh smooth.


for ASKHAT

I start by showing how to speed up the user interface by removing useless tools from the quad and setting up keystrokes that are easily reached for the common tools (the ones you will need are loop, ring, connect edge, chamfer edge, connect vert and bevel. Bridge is also used, but the key doesnt work in the obvious way- like the button does (will have to have a word see if I can get that polished up in the code)

Making smart quads is then covered, in breif (I have some detailed vids coming soon for mega max streamlining soon)it shows you to map modifiers and commonly used tools to the CTRL-RM click. Also putting common things like the coordinate system and brush/ lasso select tools in the quad.

I then run through how you can use shift to drag out faces, edges and elements. Then show how to quickly drop rings of edges in by using the loop/ring/connect egdge keystrokes.

Bridge is used several times to fill in the gaps between loops too.

Delaney King

Oh hey yeah, and if your new to edit poly I am still flogging off Creature Workshop disks at Turbosquid- disk 1 runs through all the basic features of poly modelling- pretty much every button in order, so you can build a monster with no prior knowledge.

All money raised for the DVDS is donated to keeping my wife in cool shoes.

Spark

Nice tutorial King, always cool to see how someone else does there modeling. Do you have it where you can download it? As I dont have quicktime pro, and would like to grab this for sure.

Spark
www.bbriley.com

Slum

Dave: Great stuff man. I enjoy a nicely done video tutorial. I actually made a simple one the other night, but not produced nearly as efficiently as yours. You have a very pleasent voice, something that most videos of this type are lacking.

I remember seeing some of the same Bridge functionality in one of the promo videos for max...7? The demo model was made by you as well, I believe.

Edit: Oh yeah. right when you added the symmetry modifier to the whole model at the end of part 2, I realized the guy looks just like a Mangalore from the Fifth Element :P

Spark: If you're using firefox on the page with the embedded .mov video, go to Tools>Page Info, then the Media tab. You'll find the quicktime movie listed under the 'embed' type. from there, just select it and hit the 'save as' button.

tremulant

Oh man that was great. Thanks dave...Also you have a very nice voice for tutorials.

PeterK

That was really nice David. Thanks for doing this, I learned quite a bit. Is there anyway you can make a downloable version available so we can reference it?

MoP

Nice stuff Dave, very clear and smart tips in those vids.

One question - Why "User" viewport mode? You mention that you're using it in the first video, but don't explain why, you just talk about facet/highlight shading (which I often use for exactly the same reasons as you, in Perspective view).

Neo_God

Well as far as I've noticed, cutting is less wonky in the user viewport than it is in the perspective view port.

Awesome stuff Dave! I see this as being more of a "How to streamline your max workflow" than a head tutorial.

I agree with Slum, you have a very pleasant voice.

Asmuel

Great stuff Dave awsome contribution to the community

Slash

Oh man, those vids made me feel like such a NOOB! I never use hotkeys, i've always done it the hard way by selecting the tool i wanted from a button or menu. Thanks a lot for opening my eyes!

BTW, i've always had this weird problem with quicktime, on different computers.. Without warning the video turns green, but the sound continues as normal. The only way to fix it is to restart quicktime and PRAY it doesnt happen again.. very often it does..

Anyone know what may be causing this, and what can be done to fix it?

Rwolf

Good review. I haven't used Max since I starts school at VFS. My mindset is XSI, and I can only stare at mas :P

polyslacker

Great work! Any chance for a body one in the future? Or, can you recommend one?

Michael Knubben

askhat: if it's a download-limit issue i can't help, but if it's lack of codecs or earphones, you can download it and maybe take it to another computer on a usb-stick?
I wont direct-link to the files, but tag on the filename to the /videos directory, and you're golden.

Great videos Dave, and very easily transferrable to other software as well. It deals mostly with customising max, i realise, but it's great to see you work. Oh, and i never knew about those alternate Quad-menus!

Pseudo

Learned some stuff that applied to my Maya workflow as well.

Oh and bridge is my new favorite tool.

Thanks Dave.

Pedro Amorim

king: when will you release the 2 dvds that are left to complete the trilogy?

Fuse

hey dave thanks a bunch for the nurms toggle it will definitely prove useful

Ever since i took some serious time in customizing my gui and shortkey my workflow really improved, now i almost exclusively wokr in expert mode so i have optimum viewport realestate, there were a few real useful tips that i hotkeys for myself..

Really helpful video overall

X-One

I found this very informative, especially for someone trying to familiarize myself with 3DS. Great stuff.

jam

Very informative. Thanks for taking the time to do this.
Curious as to what software you used for the recordings? If you can share..

Delaney King

The last two DVDs have been held up by a whole onslaught of things, moving overseas twice, noisy neighbours making recording impossible at one flat, disk storage whilst travelling, waiting for max 9 and working on projects. Moving to the UK was not cool.

The rest of the series should be ready soon! Promise. Really!