For people who don't know anything about
polygon-modelling or 3D Studio MAX,
but want to learn how to use the most
important tools fast.
There
are a lot of options in 3D Studio
MAX, but with the ones I'm going to
show you, you will be able to make
a gun, and also lots of other objects,
easily.
First draw your gun, and put it on a
plane. Press the "f" key (to
go to the front view). Create a plane
(Objects tab / plane object) by clicking
once on the screen and then drag.(keep
mousebutton down).
Then
press "m" on your keyboard
to show the Material Editor (can also
be found under Rendering>Material
Editor).
Select
an empty slot. Next to the Diffuse
color is a button, click on it and
select 'bitmap'. Then browse for your
gun picture. Assign the material to
the plane, select the plane and in
the Material Editor you can find the
button to assign the material to the
plane.
Don't
forget to put on 'Show map in Viewport'
in your Material Editor.
The
plane must be the same size as the
picture. So look up your picture size
and put it in the plane's Parameters.
To find out the size: view the image
in the Material Editor (under Bitmap
Parameters).Then right click on the
picture. The
Plane's Parameters are found under
the "Modify" tab on the
right of your screen.
Now
we are going to freeze the plane,
so we can't select it during modeling.
In the Display tab (near the Modify
tab on the right of your screen.)
You will find a freeze section there.
If you freeze the plane it will
turn grey, therefore you first have
to turn 'show frozen objects in
gray' off in the 'object properties':
Right click on the plane and you
will find "object properties".
Now you can "Freeze selected".
Create
a box to begin (under the objects
tab Left on your screen). Click
and drag to create a box. You need
to resize the depth of the box now.
You can use Alt + middle mouse button
to rotate the view so you can see
the side of the box. Use "f"
to return to Front view again.
Use
the scale (Select and non-uniform
scale) button to resize the box.
Pull the Z angle.
Now we have to convert the object
to an 'Editable Poly': Go
to the Modify tab again. Right Click
on the box and select "convert
to Editable Poly". Be sure
that the Lenght, Width, Height Segments
are put on 1 before you do this.
Now
you can modify every part of the
box, you can move/scale/rotate the
different Polygons by selecting
the Polygon mode. Or the vertices
or edges. Play with them a bit to
understand them better.
I'm
going to select the upper Polygon
and extrude and scale it. Because
the next part has to be smaller.
Put the "edged faces"
on. Do this by right clicking on
the text on the left side of your
viewport (probably front or user).
You
will find "edged faces"
there.
The
Extrude button can be found in the
"edit Polygons" section
of the Polygon mode.
I
pulled the face slighty up and then
used the scale button to scale it.
Next to the scale button you will
find a pull down menu. Put it on
local, this way the scaling will
be easier to do. The pivot will
follow the object rotation.
In
the front view you can modify the
vertex to fit your picture.
Keep
on extruding and changing the vertices
untill you've got a good shape.
Now
I'm going to apply a meshmooth to
this object to make it smooth. Meshmooth
can be found in the "Modifier
List". Put
the iterations to 1 to see the effect.
The
whole gun is smoothed, but I want
the bottompart to be hard, so put
on "Seperate by Smoothing Groups"
in the "Surface Parameters"
of the Parameter rollout of the
Meshsmooth modifier. Maybe your
gun still looks strange. This is
because you have to assign the different
smoothing groups in the Editable
poly mode: Click
on editable poly and give the different
poly's Smoothing Groups. If you
want a part to be smooth, give them
the same number. If you want a hard
corner, give the polys of that corner
different numbers.
Toggle
"Show end result" on to
see how it looks with the meshsmooth.
you can put "Edged faces"
off again to get a good view.
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Here's
how I assigned the smoothing groups.
You
see a round surface on the gun,
this will be created with the cut
tool. Can be found (in polygon mode)
under "edit geometry".
Put
the gun to see through. Press ALT-X
or right click on the object and
go to "Properties". Now
you can see the picture of your
gun through your model. Click on
"f" to go to the front
view.
I'm
welding some vertices that I don't
need anymore. "Weld" can
be found under "Edit Vertices".
I used "Target weld".
With
"Target Weld" you need
to drag one vertice to another to
weld them. You
can also use "Weld", "Weld"
welds the vertices you selected
in the middle of those vertices.
To
get the same shape on the other
side copy the mesh (Shift-Click
on your object or go to Edit>Clone)
Delete
the parts you don't need, delete
the meshsmooth. Select
the original object, go to Editable
poly mode. Attach the second object
(attach is found under "Edit
Geometry"). Bring
the second part to the right place
and weld the vertices. You can select
all the vertices and use "Weld"
to weld all the vertices that are
close to eachother.
Hide
this object and go and make the other parts
of the gun. You can use the same tools.
Begin again with a box. You
can hide the object in the Display tab on
the right of your screen.
To
make the Safety lock I made a Cylinder
Object (Can be found under Objects,
near the box) 2 height segments
and 20 sides. I extruded 6 of these
sides. Deleted the end faces (red
faces in the image).
Create
another Cylinder Object with 2 height
segments, but now with14 sides.
Delete 6 faces (see picture). Put
the small Cylinder on the right
spot. Attach the objects together.
Use Target weld to weld the vertices
(Last Picture).
Always
try to use Polygons with 4 vertices
(quads):
this will give the best result when smoothing
the object. Avoid polygons with 5 or more
vertices.
