3D Studio Max 7 Tutorial
Introduction to 3D Studio Max 7
Download ghaz's PDF of the tutorial and mod files here: Tutorial Kit. If you are having trouble downloading, try right-clicking and using “Save as” or “Save Target”, or “Save link as” and it should work fine.
View the PDF online: 3D Studio Max 7 PDF
This tutorial is for those who know as much about 3ds Max as I did when I got started. Absolutely nothing. So we will start from scratch and end up with a textured non-animated model (.MDL) that you can use for Fate.
There are definately better ways of doing it, but I’ll show you what works for me while also using as many different 3ds max stuff as possible. I also advise you to make a brand new save after each big step. That way you can always go back to an old saved file if something goes wrong.
You will find a few notes like this one scattered throughout the tutorial. They are the additions of the editor based on experience using the tutorial. Any mistakes, inaccurate information, or blatant stupidity in these notes, is solely the fault of the editor, not the author.
First I want to make sure that you viewport is setup the same as mine. It should be the same as the default, but just to make sure go to Customize ) Viewport Configuration. If you click on the Layout tab, it should look like Figure 1. If it does not, click on the viewport picture to change it.
In Figure 2 you can see some of the important buttons. I will refer to these a lot. Red is select, green is move, blue is rotate and pink is scale.
This is also a good time for you to learn some other basic controls:
1. Middle-mousebutton pans the ‘camera’.
2. Mousewheel zooms in and out.
3. Middleclicking on a view selects that view without losing your current object selection.
4. Other useful controls are in the bottom-right corner of the screen, pan, zoom, rotate view etc.
5. Just note that rotate view rotates the ‘camera’, while the rotate in Figure 2 physically rotates your object. If you just want to see your object from a different angle, use the rotate in the bottom-right corner.
6. Pressing F3 and F4 turns shading and wire mode on and off. So if the object in one of my screenshots is solid while yours is a wireframe, press F3.
A note on selecting Polygons and Vertices:
These work a bit differently than selecting objects. You can point and click in any of the views, and hold down the CTRL key make multiple selections. Alternately, you can click and drag a box around the polys and vertices you want to select.
Creating the Handle
OK, time to start with our axe. I’ll start with the handle.
1. Click on the Create tab (Figure 4 : red circle, top right corner). Select Geometry (green circle) and click on Cylinder (blue circle).
2. Click and drag on the top viewport (like Figure 3). It does not matter how big, we will manually set this in the next step.
If you didn’t click anywhere else, your bottom right corner will show the cylinder parameters like in Figure 5 (ignore the specific values, yours will be different).
If it shows only zeros for the radius and height, don’t worry.
3. Just select the cylinder you created (click on the select button and click on the cylinder)
4. Click on the Modify tab (next to the red circle in Figure 4).
5. Now set radius = 4, height = 100, height segments = 1, cap segments = 1 and sides = 6.
So now your object should look like the one in Figure 6.
Creating the Axe Head
Now we need to add the head of the axe. This might be tricky. First you need to convert the object to something that we can mold like a piece of clay. I use editable poly.
1. Select your object and right-click on it. At the bottom of the popup menu you will see a Convert To section.
2. Go into that sub-menu and click on Convert to Editable Poly.
If you now go to the Modify section on the top right of your screen you will no longer see the parameters of the cylinder.
Now you will see Figure 7.
Click on the little plus next to Editable Poly to see the detail.
I only use the vertex and polygon options.
Vertices, Edges and Polys:
A quick explanation might be necessary. A vertex is a point in space. The line connecting two vertices is called a edge. A polygon is a ‘surface’ surrounded by edges. My jargon might not be totally correct, so if my explanation is too vague, just click on vertex, edge or polygon and select bits of your object. You will quickly learn what is what.
Performing the Slice
1. Click on Polygon and select all the polygons as shown in Figure 8.
Note that selected polys will be in red and non-selected the color of your cylinder at creation (see inset of Figure8). Also, the number of polys selected is listed at the bottom of the selection roll-out (highlighted in green in Figure 8).
Important:
Make sure the Ignore Backfacing box is NOT checked. If it is, you can only select the polys in the front.
We now want to create the polys for the head. If you haven’t realized yet, you can scroll down on the right menus.
2. Scroll down until you get to the Edit Geometry section.
3. Click on the Slice Plane button. A yellow line should appear.
4. Click the move button at the top and move it upwards until it looks like Figure 9.
Note that when you click the move button, axes appear with the yellow line.
If you hold the move cursor on the x -axis while moving, you will only move on the x -axis. The same applies for y and z.
The Z-axis:
Note that the Z-axis indicator, in Figure 9 perspective view, appears to be on the same plane as the X-axis, and it is... we actually only have 2 dimensions to work with... think of it more as a handle to move things up and down with.
If you click on the top right corner of the square between the axes, you can move in any direction you can see in that specific view.
Sometimes you might want to switch to a different view to move a object.
5. If the yellow line is in position, just click Slice (the button below the slice plane button).
Now your object should look like Figure 10. You can see that we sliced the polys into more polys.
Essentially we cut the cylinder into 2 cylinders, one atop the other, but still connected. Now we can work with the new section to make our axe head.
Extruding the Axe Head
1. Now select the new polys. Make sure you don’t select to poly at the top.
2. Scroll around on the menu at the right and look for the Edit Polygons section.
3. Click on the little settings box next to the Extrude button.
4. Change the type to Local Normal and the height to 2.
5. Press OK.
See Figure 11 for details and how the result should look.
Extrude the Blades
Now go to your front view and select the polys at the top-middle.
Note in figure 12a, that only 2 polygons are selected-- the very front and very back of the head section. We added a good look at the selected polys for extruding the blade. It can be very easy to get more than the front and back polys included by mistake.
Extrude them by 20. The result should look like Figure 12.
Shaping the Blade
Now we will shape the blades.
1. Change to vertex mode and look at your left view.
2. Select the vertices in the corners as shown in Figure 13.
3. Click and hold the scale button and select non-uniform scale (see Figure 14).
4. Click on the y-axis and move up. Scale until it looks like Figure 15.
Scaling the vertices on the y-axis only moves them away from each other. You could have moved the vertices by hand, but this method ensures that the top and bottom vertices are exactly the same distance from the middle.
Now lets just sharpen the blades.
1. Again select all the blade corner vertices.
2. Click on the Weld settings box under the Edit Vertices section (see Figure 16).
3. Set the threshold to 7 and press OK.
If the distance between some the selected vertices is less than 7, this will weld them together.
As you can see, the vertices at the ends of the blades are now welded together. The blade is now sharp.
Saving and Viewing Your Model
This isn’t the prettiest axe ever, but it looks fine for a first try. Now lets see how it looks in Fate. I included a mod manager compatible example item with this. So lets just export the model to the correct folder. If you don’t know how to add an item to Fate, check out some of the excellent tutorials on the Fate Modding Forum.
To export:
1. go to File > Export.
2. Select Screwdriver Model (*.MDL) as the save type.
Be sure to save your axe as a “myaxe.max” file as well as “myaxe.MDL” -- You will not be able to import “myaxe.MDL” directly. It's also a good idea to save your axe by different filenames as you progress, so if the worst happens, you won’t have start all over.
3. If .MDL is not listed as a possibility, you need to get the plugins from the Mod Kit. Look for it on the Fate Modding Forum.
To install the Exporter Plugin:
1. Go to Customize > Plugin Manager...
2. When the Plugin Manager opens, right-click in the list, and choose ‘Load New Plug-in...’ from the context menu.
3. Navigate to where you extracted your Mod Kit and open the ‘MAX6&7 EXPORTERS’ folder.
4. Select “ExportMDL.dle” and click open.
5. Close the Plug-in Manager, and export your axe.
Note: In the trial version of Max 7, you will have to re-install the exporter every time you re-start the program.
4. Save it as MODS/quickytut/ITEMS/myaxe.mdl.
5. Use the viewer.exe program that comes with the Mod Kit to view the model. If it doesn’t show in the viewer, something is wrong (Ignore the weird texture that shows up in the viewer; We still have to add a texture).
6. Use Mod Manager to apply the mod and enter the game.
7. Press Ctrl-Shift-˜ (tilde: below the ‘ESC’ key and left of the ‘1’ key) and type myaxe.
If you did everything correct and you equipped the axe, you will see something like Figure 17.
I like my axes big, but I think we can all agree that it is a bit too much.
Re-sizing Your Axe
So lets resize.
Select the axe and click and hold scale again, but this time choose uniform scale.
You can either click and drag to scale, or manually enter the value in the X-axis box at the bottom of the screen as shown in Figure 18.
A couple notes about ‘click and drag’ scaling:
1. As shown in figure 18, it's recommended that you scale from the “Create” tab and “Geometry” button. It’s not required, but since all elements can scaled individually (vertices, edges, polys), this configuration helps ensure there won’t be any selection errors and really wonky results.
2. Clicking inside the shaded yellow triangle (perspective view as in Figure 18) will scale all three axes uniformly on a uniform scale. However, even on a uniform scale, clicking outside that triangle will most likely result in scaling a single axis.
3. The axis scale numbers (bottom of figure 18) show the overall scale, however, when using ‘Click and Drag’ scaling, these numbers change to scale in relation to your starting point.
This makes using the “type the number into the X-axis box” (bottom of figure 18) by far the easiest method to achieve an exact scale.
4.5 gives a bit better result. Export and overwrite the old file in the mod folder. Run the game again and cheat the item.
Looks better this time, but he doesn’t grip the handle exactly where I want.
Moving the Pivot
To change this we move the pivot.
1. Select the axe.
2. Click on the Hierarchy tab (top-right corner, next to the Modify tab).
3. Click Affect Pivot Only and move the pivot to the desired position.
The pivot shows where the object is positioned and which way it should face. So moving and rotating the pivot will result in a rotated or moved item in Fate.
The end moving result should look something like Figure 21.
If you export it again you will see the grip is now perfect (Figure 22).
Making the Texture
Now we only have to do the texture. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Time to save and backup.
1. Select your object. Make sure you don’t just select polys or vertices, but the object itself.
2. Go the Modify tab and click on the words Modifier List (see Figure 23).
3. Scroll down and select Unwrap UVW.
It should be the exact words, not something close to it. If your Modify window doesn’t look exactly like Figure 24, right-click the Unwrap UVW and delete. Make sure you object is correctly selected and try again.
The purpose of the UVW-thing is to get a flat representation of your model that you can color. The list containing our Edit Poly and Unwrap UVW is called the modifier stack. It should also be seen as a literal stack. You should not try to modify anything that is not on top. It could still work, but then again, why take the risk.
4. With everything still selected, scroll down and click on the Planer Map button and then on Edit (all texture map images are zoomed out from the 3D Studio Max default to make the images smaller).
What you see now will hopefully confuse you. It should look something like Figure 25.
Luckily we can make it better.
5. In this new Edit UVWs window go to Mapping > Flatten Mapping and press OK.
Usually it doesn’t turn out this nice, but this time we were lucky. Now it should look sort of like Figure 26. As you can see there are no overlapping lines, so it should be quite easy to colour.
The next steps may seem a bit crude, but it is the only way I know how.
6. Still in the Edit UVWs window, go to Options > Advanced Options.
7. Uncheck the three boxes in the colors section.
Now you should have a dark blue block with white lines showing the different polys (It’s hard to see the blue block in this zoomed out image, but it’s there).
8. Zoom in until the dark blue block fills the screen and press PrintScreen on your keyboard.
Some notes about texture maps:
They can be basically any size, but the shape can matter... in the case of this axe it should be square.
Some designs prefer the size to be a grid of a certain size square; i.e. FATE icons are built on a grid 48 x 48 pixel squares.
The bigger your map is, the more detailed and less jagged the edges will look, but it also takes more and more texture memory. Try to find a balance.
We recommend looking through the texture maps for FATE and getting a feel for what the designers felt was a good balance of detail to memory requirements.
Open your favourite image editing program (GIMP, Photoshop, paint).
9. Go to Edit > Paste.
10. Select only the blue border with the image inside and go to Edit > Copy. Paste it as a new image.
Should look like a image with a blue border.
11. Now you should just color it.
For this I really recommend Photoshop or GIMP. If you don’t already have Photoshop, don’t bother buying it, use the GIMP (it is free).
12. Remember to save in in the same folder as your 3ds Max file.
I tried to finish my texture file as quickly as possible, so hopefully yours will look better. Mine looks like like Figure 27. I really hope yours looks better.
To be fair, the author's looks better than this image, too... as shrinking it to a manageable size for presentation made it a bit jaggy and primitive looking.
Applying the Texture
Now we have to apply the texture to the model.
1. Close the Edit UVWs window.
2. Select your object and press m.
3. Select the top left material and click on the button that says Standard (see Figure 28).
4. Double-click on Multi/Sub-Object.
If it asks if you want to keep or discard old materials, I usually just discard, but if you added something previously it might be better to keep it.
5. Now click on the topmost material.
The material number doesn’t matter (yours will probably be different from mine), just pick the one next to id 1 (see Figure 29).
6. Scroll down to Maps and click on the box (labelled none) next to Diffuse Color.
7. Double-click on bitmap and find myaxe.png. It should be in the same folder as your .max file.
8. Now click the Assign Material to Selection button and click Show Map in Viewport (see Figure 30).
9. Click the Go to Parent button to go back to the main materials window.
Your object should now be textured... but it is not. Unfortunately I made a mistake, so lets fix it.
1. Close the materials window.
What went wrong is that I forgot to give the object a material ID. This is something that you are supposed to do before you create the UVW map.
We already spent a lot of time on the map and the texture, so to redo it all would be just terrible. Luckily we don’t have to.
2. Select your object and once again click on the Modifier List on the right.
3. This time select Edit Poly.
Now we can make changes to our poly without losing the previous work.
4. Choose polygon mode and select all the polys. It should look like Figure 31.
5. Make sure that the Ignore Backfacing box is not checked, and scroll down to the Polygon Properties section.
6. Type 1 in the Set ID box and press enter (see Figure 32).
Now everything should work (You may need to open the materials window and repeat step 8 above).
If you want a nice rendered picture:
1. Press F10
2. Choose the viewport
3. Click on Render.
This is a good way to create an icon.
OK, so export the model again and this time also copy myaxe.png to the mod folder.
Now the model in-game should look like Figure 33 (hopefully with a better texture than mine).
Adding a Reflection Layer
For the final bit we’ll make the blade shiny. This involves creating a reflection texture and assigning it to the model. Very easy.
1. First make a copy of myaxe.png and rename it myaxeref.png.
2. Open myaxeref.png in your image editor and get ready to edit.
The reflection texture is a grayscale image where black causes no reflection and white total reflection. I’m going to edit mine so that the handle reflects nothing and the blade almost everything. The result looks like Figure 34.
3. Press m again to go to the materials window.
4. Again click on the material next to ID 1.
5. Scroll down to Maps and click on the button next to Reflection.
6. Double-click on bitmap and find myaxeref.png.
7. Press the Assign Material to Selection button.
For some strange reason the reflection map doesn’t work correctly when I render it in 3ds Max, but it works perfectly in Fate. So my method is probably wrong, but for Fate it works.
Last step! Export the model again and remember to also copy myaxeref.png to the mod folder. Run the game and play with your new axe.
Enjoy the chopping.
ghaz