3DS Max Beginner help
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!
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!
Replies
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
Also thank you for your links but;
Here I am in china with all the time in the world to learn this stuff and no access (currently) to youtube.
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.
3ds max is getting very frustrating.
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?
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.
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!
To render UVWs, it's like Dubzski said.
As for reshaping UV faces, I think that's what Tools>Relax is for
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
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!
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!
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!