3DS Max and related tools

[sea]

I'm sort of in the process of trying to learn 3DS Max, both because it's useful for creating models and textures for my own work, but also because it serves as the basis for understanding a lot of other game editors around there (for example, the newer versions of Unreal Engine borrow heavily from 3DS Max's interface). Seeing as I still have it in my stupid little head that I might want to be a game developer, knowledge of 3DS Max (and by extension other tools, like Maya etc.) would be more than beneficial for me to have.

I'm sort of at the point right now where the interface itself isn't really a challenge for me, short of finding certain functions and features, but that's no big deal that can't be overcome with a web search. I can create simple models no problems, both extracted from 2D shapes and by combining or deforming existing ones, including certain modifiers (some of which seem extremely useful to me).

Where it gets difficult is when I want to do anything more complex than making, say, an apple, an ice-cream cone, etc. I've tried creating some basic monster-type models, since I don't have to worry at all about proportions and that sort of thing, and they really have not turned out well at all. I'm wondering if anyone here can help me out and give me some tips on what the "right" tools for these sorts of jobs are. Obviously using some sort of photo reference can help, but it seems like manipulating geometry can sometimes be extremely difficult, especially when you're dealing with precision.

So yeah, I guess that's it. Tips, tricks, and anything else for getting over the initial barrier would be more than appreciated!

 

[spectre]

What I am doing it myself is this: max is just there for animation, texturing and rendering, while all the lowpoly modelling is done, say, in wings3d, or blender, or whatever is most comfortable for you.

And you may try just that, I remember way modelling was utterly unintuitive for me, while in wings, I was making pretty good sculptures in no time. So, in short, try some program that supports subdivision modelling and see if it makes a difference for you.

Besides wings, you may try blender, which I cannot stand for its abyssmal UI (although doing skeletal animation in it was good fun), modo (which is something like wings deluxe).
If you would want to go with wings, you can drop me a line and I can give you some hints.

Another thing to try is get yourself some models from turbosquid and experiment with them adding and removing things until you feel comfortable.

You can always do various tutorials. You'll pick up a few things along the way, and they may teach you that there's always more than one way of making the shape you want. It's all about expanding your repetoire.

 

[Davaris]

I'm not a max user, its too expensive to bother with, but if you are serious about becoming good with any 3D modeler, join a website that sells paid video tutorials. There's no faster way to learn.

 

[Shemar]

I used to use 3DS but I have switched to Blender since I have no longer access to a legal license and I am not interested in piracy.

Anyway, trying to do live things is pretty much the hardest task in modelling. Start with simpler inanimate objects (furniture, weapons, other types of props). Even very very talented people need hours upon hours to create a single good looking monster.

 

[sea]

I might take a look at Blender, I guess I'm more interested in Max just because of its professional applications and the sheer amount of variety in its tools (for example, being able to paint textures directly onto a model is a pretty huge time-saver, though I'm sure other programs do it). Paid video tutorials may be out of the question, and while I've searched plenty of other sites I haven't found anything that really goes into stuff beyond the absolute basics.

And yes, I'm well aware of how time-consuming and difficult modeling is. I'm not looking so much to be a professional with the tools (at least not yet) as I am simply looking at gaining some understanding of them and basic ability, mostly with regards to workflow and usability.

Thanks for the tips thus far, I'll keep cracking away at it I suppose.

 

[barker_s]

For organic things, you might follow the way of Prosper and try zBrush / Sculptris. It's so easy and intuituve - I can't draw, I've never done any 3d modelling besides some furniture and here's what I'm working on after 1 week of toying with Sculptris:

 

[sea]

I've definitely been considering trying out ZBrush as well, though I'm not sure if it's as widely applicable as 3DS Max (considering it lacks the animation etc. tools). Still, if it works, it works, and the idea of sculpting makes a lot more sense to me as someone who used to practice art pretty extensively a few years ago. If the interface is as intuitive as you make it sound then I'll have to try it out soon.

 

[sea]

After about 20 minutes of dicking around in ZBrush I ended up with this thing:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10680698/Pictur ... tooooo.png

I mean, sure, it's terrible, but at least it kind of looks like something, and could theoretically be worked into something significantly better with more time. Fine detail and precision are still a test of patience, still, unless I'm missing something, and I can't see it being useful for anything mechanical, requiring hard edges, etc., but the usability of the program is just so much better coming in from not knowing how to use 3D modeling programs at all.

 

[Jaesun]

Somewhat related, I kind of have a Myst Like Adventure game that is eternally in Design Document hell, that said, my one and only obstacle is creating 3D rendered rooms/areas (like they use in Myst likes).

I know that can be done in 3DS Max or Blender, but is there perhaps a more specific program to just create just specifically 3D rendered "rooms" or areas?

Granted if I finally get to "animated" stuff I'll probably have to finally learn to do that in Blender (Since I am POOR).

 

[Elzair]

Somewhat related, I kind of have a Myst Like Adventure game that is eternally in Design Document hell, that said, my one and only obstacle is creating 3D rendered rooms/areas (like they use in Myst likes).

I know that can be done in 3DS Max or Blender, but is there perhaps a more specific program to just create just specifically 3D rendered "rooms" or areas?

Granted if I finally get to "animated" stuff I'll probably have to finally learn to do that in Blender (Since I am POOR).

If you are interested in only pre-rendered 3D images, try POV-Ray. If you are good, you can produce stuff like this.

 

[sea]

Quickly getting the hang of ZBrush after watching some online tutorials and also quickly realising that having a tablet would be a major boon to using the program. Still, I managed to sculpt a semi-decent alien head, and I imagine moving onto bodies wouldn't be an incredible challenge beyond this point. The biggest problem is still avoiding "lumps" in models and general imprecision, getting good, strong curves etc. (masks plus smoothing help), but I'm not sure how far I'll get working with just a mouse.

 

[Davaris]

Quickly getting the hang of ZBrush after watching some online tutorials and also quickly realising that having a tablet would be a major boon to using the program. .

Tablets are very affordable.

You might want to try other packages to see if you click with any of them. I tried 3D modelers for years and got no where, until I tried Rhino + T-Splines. Expensive but not 3D Max expensive and its a rock solid modeler. Combine that with 3D Coat and you can do anything if you have the skills. 3D coat has some great videos for free. In case you haven't heard of it, its a more affordable competitor to Z-Brush. But as you say, you want to work in the industry, so you probably want to stick with the standards.

 

[latexmonkeys]

Hey Davaris,

Have you used the auto retopo tool in 3dcoat? Coming from a traditional art background I'm much more comfortable so far using zbrush or similar sculpting software than 3dsmax and the like. At least for organics anyway. So, I was pondering the feasibility of using high poly sculpting and then retopologizing later.

 

[Davaris]

Hey Davaris,

Have you used the auto retopo tool in 3dcoat? Coming from a traditional art background I'm much more comfortable so far using zbrush or similar sculpting software than 3dsmax and the like. At least for organics anyway. So, I was pondering the feasibility of using high poly sculpting and then retopologizing later.

No not yet, I am not good with 3D Coat yet. I was getting into it late last year, but got distracted with coding and Rhino.

Their forums are very good though and they will probably offer it in the demo, so ask people there what their impressions are. It was a new feature when I bought it late last year, so they were still shaking out the bugs.

They have a $99 offer for students and I think unemployed people come under that offer as well, so its definitely worth a look for anyone who is interested in learning this kind of thing.

 

[Elzair]

Are Sculptris models too high-poly for most games to handle? Can they be down-converted easily?

 

[thursdayschild]

So yeah, I guess that's it. Tips, tricks, and anything else for getting over the initial barrier would be more than appreciated!

Don't use it, the only tip on 3dsm you will ever need.

 

[Rufus_T_Firefly]

Just throwing a few recommendations for now.

http://vimeo.com/user904568
--guerrilla cg project has done awesome video tutorials
http://hippydrome.com/
--ignore the model on the front page, the topology is really bad. check out "modeling for articulation" and "articulating the body" for good topology reference.
[IMO, the models here are overly high-poly for in game stuff, but if you kill the fill loops, its good topology.]
Good topology is super important for making decent animation
http://poopinmymouth.com/tutorial/tutorial.htm
--this guy is awesome at doing lowrez textures, I know from experience the hair planes modeling/texturing tutorial is good, the rest I'm not sure, but you could check it out.

Everyone has to do the Joan of arc tutorial. It's badly translated from french, is old and archaic, but it has solid concepts about modeling humanoid bipeds that everyone should learn starting out.
http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/ma ... anmenu.php

Also in general, looking at wireframes of professional models is helpful. for that there's:
http://cghub.com/
http://www.polycount.com/
http://www.polykarbonbbs.com/index.php
http://conceptart.org/

 

[Elhoim]

This site has great, free tutorials:

http://cg.tutsplus.com/

Here is one for making a next gen model, it's quite cool and you can learn quite a bit from it:

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autode ... -workflow/

 

[sea]

Still working and experimenting.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10680698/Pictur ... /head2.jpg

Let's just say that lips are difficult. Slowly making progress but I'm running into issues with mouse drawing that a tablet (or touchscreen) would mitigate significantly. Might have to take the plunge now that I'm working with finer detail.

 

[deus101]

zBrush is in the end mainly a sculpting tool, any mesh that goes into a realtime 3D engine still needs to be refined by scaling down the polycount and rigged.

So i think starting off with the basics is your best bet, familiarize yourself with extruding, merging vertices and dividing faces.
But also find out how you can type in vertex coordinates by hand and not by just using mouse ( usefull like you wouldnt belive it)

Then start of with polygon modelling:
Set up a image plane in the middle, one for each perspective of what you want to model(there are tons of such blue prints about http://www.3dreference.org/?mod=blueprints )


Then create a box, move everything to one or the other side of the X origo, but keep one of the right at origo, then you must find how to Clone it, but with the X coordinates transformed to the other side of the origo, the idea is that for every change you make at one side, you get a symetrical result on the other side(there are function for these in the 3D Mod programs you must look up)

Rest should be pretty clear by now, for each perspective(front, down, right) you must move the vertices to fit into the blueprint of said perspective.

Use extrude to make new faces and move the resulting vertices, when you have a basic blocky form.

You hit the subdivide, and the model will have gotten "rounder" so to speak(but be sure to delete faces which is not suppose to be rounder).

When you finished with that iteration hit extrude again and realign the new vertices around the blueprint.

This is a very fun way to model, and is good practise to familiarize yourself with basic 3D moddelling and the program you are using,...this is basically all i know about the subject, there are alot more to take into consideration such as creating creases.

 

[thursdayschild]

You don't want to make high poly then scale it down. It will cause you endless grief. You also don't want to make low poly that's detailed. Solution is to make very basic low poly with good basic topology then detail it in zbrush then export back to maya (again not 3dsm as you will find out 20 weeks of work down the road why this sucks) with the proper sculpted shape. Then you fix the topology. You'll probably have to go back and forth a few times, but try to get the UVs good with your original guy.

You'll still have issues but every time you remap them it's going to be a big hassle for you. This is also why to get in your mind it's an iterative process and don't waste too much time at one step say by detailing perfect human in zbrush then losing all the work.

That probably sounds complicated but if it sounds like too much, just quit now as it's actually the least complicated way.

 

[sea]

I thought it was relatively standard to make high-poly meshes for the purpose of creating normal maps and other fine detail, which you save as texture data and similar, applied to a low-poly model? You're still going to be doing a lot of work by hand if you want models for use at runtime (though I know 3DS Max and other tools can reduce geometry automatically to save time), so it seems to make sense to me to work your way down.

Also, editing vertices is something I'm familiar with. The biggest obstacle for me, at least using 3DS Max, is the interface. I might give Blender or something a try if it's simpler. Still, feels like I shouldn't be trying to learn three or four programs before I've got the hang of one.

 

[thursdayschild]

I thought it was relatively standard to make high-poly meshes for the purpose of creating normal maps and other fine detail, which you save as texture data and similar, applied to a low-poly model?

Yes it is, after you have low poly done.

so it seems to make sense to me to work your way down.

It makes sense because you haven't tried to do it before. That's just what I thought at first, too. It would have saved weeks and weeks if I had someone like me to stop me before I wasted too much time.

Also, editing vertices is something I'm familiar with. The biggest obstacle for me, at least using 3DS Max, is the interface. I might give Blender or something a try if it's simpler. Still, feels like I shouldn't be trying to learn three or four programs before I've got the hang of one.

Yeah well, again, if you listened to common sense and experience (ie me) you'd already have realized max is a piece of shit and a complete waste of your time to learn.

Interface is a nightmare.

Scripting system is an even bigger nightmare.

Skinning boils down to typing in the values you want by hand for each vertex.

Rigging is a joke, which follows from the scripting.

Animation system is a joke. It's easy to use the one plugin which I can't remember the name of, but results are very bad. Making a GOOD animation is an exercise in futility. This is why there's so many crap animations in games, because max sucks so much.

The only reason anyone uses it is because everyone uses it, andin days gone by it was much cheaper than maya.

It does have nice UV unwrapping though.

 

[Orgasmic ThoughtCrime]

I thought it was relatively standard to make high-poly meshes for the purpose of creating normal maps and other fine detail, which you save as texture data and similar, applied to a low-poly model? You're still going to be doing a lot of work by hand if you want models for use at runtime (though I know 3DS Max and other tools can reduce geometry automatically to save time), so it seems to make sense to me to work your way down.

That is correct. Models you make in zbrush or mudbox (or any other 3d sculpting application) are not to be used in real-time engines.

In my opinion, the best pipeline for a beginner is this: create low poly mesh in your 3d application of choice (I recommend one that allows you to use real-time directX shaders for viewport), unwrap it, import it in a sculpting program, flesh out the details, and extract the normal maps.

You could work your way down and create the high poly mesh first, but then you have to retopologize it in order to create the low poly mesh (I recommend TopoGun). Using automatic poly reduction functions that come with programs like Max or Maya is NEVER a good solution, because a good polyflow is paramount for ulterior rigging and animation, and that can only be done by hand.

The biggest obstacle for me, at least using 3DS Max, is the interface.

This shouldn’t be a problem. If low-poly is all you’re after, you only need to learn a few functions and commands, and completely ignore the rest. I use MAX myself, but I know that Blender and Maya are just as capable, so it really boils down to which one you prefer. I would advise against using a simpler program (like Wings) just because it has a less cluttered interface. If you have the opportunity to learn one of the more complex programs, do that from the beginning.

Yeah well, again, if you listened to common sense and experience (i.e. me) you'd already have realized max is a piece of shit and a complete waste of your time to learn.

Interface is a nightmare.

Scripting system is an even bigger nightmare.

Skinning boils down to typing in the values you want by hand for each vertex.

Rigging is a joke, which follows from the scripting.

Animation system is a joke. It's easy to use the one plugin which I can't remember the name of, but results are very bad. Making a GOOD animation is an exercise in futility. This is why there's so many crap animations in games, because max sucks so much.

I’m sorry, but that is complete and utter bullshit.

Max has the most complex animation system along with Maya, the only major difference between the two is the interface, there’s not a single thing you can do with one that you can’t do with the other. It all boils down to what interface and what workflow you’re more comfortable with.

I find the interface in Max the most customizable and the easiest to use, followed by Maya, and find the Blender interface unnecessarily convoluted. But that doesn’t mean that Blender sucks. Or that Max is better than Maya. It just means that I prefer using it because of how comfortable it feels to me. That’s just as absurd as saying that a Porsche 911 Turbo is a crap car because you’re not used to its dashboard and can’t drive it for shit.

In the end, they’re all just tools that can do pretty much the same things (albeit through different means), and it all boils down to the person using it.

 

[thursdayschild]

I’m sorry, but that is complete and utter bullshit.

Max has the most complex animation system along with Maya, the only major difference between the two is the interface, there’s not a single thing you can do with one that you can’t do with the other. It all boils down to what interface and what workflow you’re more comfortable with.

I find the interface in Max the most customizable and the easiest to use, followed by Maya, and find the Blender interface unnecessarily convoluted. But that doesn’t mean that Blender sucks. Or that Max is better than Maya. It just means that I prefer using it because of how comfortable it feels to me. That’s just as absurd as saying that a Porsche 911 Turbo is a crap car because you’re not used to its dashboard and can’t drive it for shit.

In the end, they’re all just tools that can do pretty much the same things (albeit through different means), and it all boils down to the person using it.

The interface to max is easier to figure out initially because it's all in your face.

Now you can do anything with ANY content tool in the world, so what? You can build a house without nails, too, but I don't recommend it. In max or blender ultimately you're going to end up entering in every vert's positions by hands because the other methods are just not good enough. In maya you can download tools to skin characters in 5 minutes or less.

To most people rigging seems to mean you are binding your model to someone else's skeleton and using someone else's animation, but making a good rig is pretty key to animating, and that requires scripting.

Maya is very very easy to script. Very easy to customize ANY aspect of maya in script. Very easy to make C++ plugins to change any aspect. Max is not at all. Even an exporter is a nightmare.

So yeah if you are a hobbyist or if you don't know how to script or if you don't know maya well at all then I can see why you'd initially think max is great.

I'd even go so far as to say that max is easier for modeling compared to unmodified maya version, but that's only a small portion of what you are going to do with content creation tool unless you are happy to have someone else do stuff like rig for you, animate, script and all that jazz. Which is fine if you are making mods but not going to work out if you want to make a game.