Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 Tutorials
Basic Modeling / Parts of a Model
Subtitles of the Movie (Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 / Basic Modeling / Parts of a Model)
Let's take a look at the parts of a 3D model. No matter what the complexity of a model whether you're talking about Optimis Prime in Transformers or a lowly basketball, that 3D model is comprised of pretty much the same elements. So I'm going to go ahead and create a box, just a regular old box. And with this guy selected I'm going to right-click on him. I'm going to choose Convert To and as you see here I have Editable Poly as one of my options. When I have this selected I can choose the element that I want to deal with. So I'm going to go ahead and just zoom in a little bit and I'll click on the object again. I can go to this list here and I could choose one of these components. As you see here we have vertex and the plural is vertices, edges, orders, polygons and elements. So I'll go ahead and talk about the three that you'll find most common in, in every 3D application. So let's start with vertex. I'll go ahead and drag select and I'll zoom in. This little red point here or this.is a vertex. When it's connected to another vertex you'll wind up with the next element in the list. So these two vertices connect to give us an edge. This now is an edge, this red line and this is a, an edge and this an edge on the bottom. Of course you know where I'm going next. The four vertices or four edges give us a polygon. So this is what you're going to find when you render your object and this is probably where you're going to spend most of your time when you're modeling. So why is this important to know? Well with this polygon selected let's say I right-click on it and I choose a bevel operation. Well when I choose the bevel I can go ahead and hit W to move this up, you see I can completely change the shape of this object because I decided to work on the polygon level. But if I want to work with an edge to modify this object, I can click on this edge here and I can move just that edge and I can create all kinds of shapes. And if I want to go really micro I can go to Vertex Mode and I can either drag select some vertices and I can just move those too. See that? So I'm just moving those two vertices. Or I can click on one and I'll move that in, move it like this. So it depends on what you're doing. Typically you'll find as you get experience as a modeler, you'll know which mode you need to choose to do what you need to do. So when you're working on a robot for example or you're working on a castle or a house, chances are you're going to start on a polygon level, you're going to right-click and you're going to either extrude or bevel. You're going to manipulate that shape in some fashion and then you're going to tweak it. So you're then going to go to an Edge Mode, you might grab an edge, move that edge in a little bit or this way and you might want to refine it even further and you're going to grab a vertex. And from this vertex you can go ahead and move that up or tweak that as well. So once again you'll know which mode you need as you gain experience. So that is a quick look at the three most common elements in 3D applications vertices, edges and polygons.
Tutorial Information
| Course: | Autodesk 3ds Max 2013 |
| Author: | Dwayne Ferguson |
| SKU: | 34400 |
| ISBN: | 978-1-61866-084-8 |
| Release Date: | 2013-01-08 |
| Duration: | 7.5 hrs / 91 lessons |
| Work Files: |
Yes |
| Captions: | No |
| Compatibility: |
Vista/XP/2000, OS X, Linux QuickTime 7, Flash 8 |
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