Getting Started with 3D Modeling for Design Visualization

In this tutorial, you learn how to model and animate in 3ds max. You will construct an animated revolving door for a hotel lobby. In the course of doing so, you'll learn about creating and transforming primitive and parametric objects. You'll learn about using snaps and pivots points for alignment, as well as general user interface navigation skills. You'll learn to instance objects and link them into an animated hierarchy. You'll also learn to merge files together.

Skill Level: Beginner

Time to complete: 25 minutes

Features Covered in This Tutorial
After completing this tutorial, you should be able to:

• Create a revolving door by using primitive and AEC extended objects.
• Apply materials to objects and sub-objects.
• Animate the doors in the scene using rotation transforms and parametric animation.
• Merge objects from another file into your scene.

Tutorial Files
All the necessary files to do the tutorials can be found on the Tutorial And Sample Files CD, in the \tutorials\intro_to_design_visualization\ folder, unless otherwise specified. Before beginning the tutorials, copy the \tutorials directory from the CD to your \3dsmax6 local installation.

In This Tutorial

• Setting Up Units and Snaps
• Creating the Hub
• Creating the Enclosure
• Creating the Revolving Door
• Applying Materials to the Revolving Door
• Cloning the Doors
• Animating the Revolving Door
• Merging Files

3Ds Max Tutorial : Using Foliage to Enhance Your Scene

New to 3ds max 6 are AEC Objects, which include doors, windows, walls, foliage, stairs, and railings. These objects can be used to quickly add complexity to your scene.

In this lesson, you will add several 3D trees to the library scene, adding greatly to its character with just a few clicks.

Add 3D trees to a scene:

1. From the \tutorials\designviz directory, open library_grass.max.

2. On the Create panel, choose AEC Extended from the Geometry drop-down list.

3. In the Object Type rollout, click Foliage.

4. On the Create Panel > Favorite Plants rollout, choose the American Elm.

5. In the Top viewport, click to create three trees along the front window of the library.

6. Press F10 to open the Render Scene dialog.

7. Make sure Viewport is set to Camera01, and click Render.

   3ds max renders the scene

Note: Make sure that none of the branches penetrate the library walls.

Cropping and editing bitmaps for Corel Draw

After you add a bitmap to a drawing, you can crop, resample, and resize the bitmap. Cropping removes unwanted areas of a bitmap. When you resample a bitmap, you can change the image size, the resolution, or both by adding or removing pixels. For example, if you make an image larger without resampling, you can lose details because the image’s pixels are spread over a greater area. By resampling, you can add pixels to preserve more detail from the original image. Resizing an image maintains the same number of pixels in a smaller or larger area. For example, you can lose details when you make an image larger without resampling because the image’s pixels are spread over a greater area. Upsampling adds pixels to maintain some of the original’s details.

Flying the Spacefighter for 3Ds max

In this tutorial, you'll animate the spacefighter you built in the Modeling a Low-Polygon Spaceship tutorial. You will make it fly along a simple path by using the path constraint. You'll also learn how to blend paths.

Skill Level: Beginner to Intermediate

Time to complete: 1 hour

Features Covered in This Tutorial
In this tutorial you will learn:

• Animating with Path constraints.
• Using dummy objects for animation.
• Using weighted list controllers to add turbulence.
• Setting keys using the Set Keys button.
• Controlling Euler controller rotations.
• Substituting high resolution objects for low resolution objects by using XRefs.

All the necessary files for this tutorial can be found on the Tutorial And Sample Files CD in the tutorials\intro_to_animation directory. Before starting the tutorials, copy the \tutorials folder to your local\3dsmax6 installation.

Import Excel data to an Access database

1. Make sure the Microsoft Excel data is in list format: each column has a label in the first row and contains similar facts, and there are no blank rows or columns within the list.
2. Close the Excel workbook that contains the data you want to use in Microsoft Access.
3. In Access, open the database where you want to copy the Excel data.
4. On the Access File menu, point to Get External Data, and then click Import.
5. In the Import dialog box, click Microsoft Excel in the Files of type box.
6. In the Look in list, locate the file you want to import, and then double-click the file.
7. Follow the directions in the Import Spreadsheet Wizard.

   For more information about this wizard and Access, click Display Help after the wizard is finished.

Working with URLs

Assigning a URL to a web object creates a link to a file such as a web page. You can assign URLs to hotspots, buttons, and slice objects. When you intend to use the same URLs several times, you can create a URL library in the URL panel and store the URLs in the library. You use the URL panel to add, edit, and organize your URLs.

For example, if your website contains several navigation buttons to return to your home page, you can add the URL for your home page to the URL panel. Then you assign this URL to each navigation button by selecting it in the URL library. You can use the Find and Replace feature to change a URL across multiple documents (see Finding and replacing).

URL libraries are available for all Fireworks documents and are saved between sessions.

Preview and export the images for firework

Your image source file now contains six frames with six images. Holding the images in frames lets you export them all at once with the file settings you want, as follows.

Select File > Image Preview

In the Image Preview dialog box, do the following:
In the Format pop-up menu, select JPEG.
The JPEG format is best for digital or scanned photographs, images using textures, images with gradient color transitions, and any images that require more than 256 colors. For more information on format choices, seeAbout graphic files.

In the Quality text box, type 75, or use the Quality slider.
Select the Sharpen Color Edges option.
Click Export.
In the Export dialog box that appears, browse to the following folder on your hard disk:
local_sites/cafe_townsend/images/

Select Frames to Files in the Export pop-up menu.
Make sure that Trim Images is not selected.
Click Export.
Fireworks exports each frame as a separate image file to the images folder using the name of the frame for the filename.

Use Time In Excel

Returns the decimal number for a particular time. If the cell format was General before the function was entered, the result is formatted as a date.

The decimal number returned by TIME is a value ranging from 0 (zero) to 0.99999999, representing the times from 0:00:00 (12:00:00 AM) to 23:59:59 (11:59:59 P.M.).

Syntax

TIME(hour,minute,second)

Hour is a number from 0 (zero) to 32767 representing the hour. Any value greater than 23 will be divided by 24 and the remainder will be treated as the hour value. For example, TIME(27,0,0) = TIME(3,0,0) = .125 or 3:00 AM.

Minute is a number from 0 to 32767 representing the minute. Any value greater than 59 will be converted to hours and minutes. For example, TIME(0,750,0) = TIME(12,30,0) = .520833 or 12:30 PM.

Second is a number from 0 to 32767 representing the second. Any value greater than 59 will be converted to hours, minutes, and seconds. For example, TIME(0,0,2000) = TIME(0,33,22) = .023148 or 12:33:20 AM

Remark

Microsoft Excel for Windows and Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh use different date systems as their default. Time values are a portion of a date value and represented by a decimal number (for example, 12:00 PM is represented as 0.5 because it is half of a day).

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank worksheet.

Note To view the time as a decimal number, select the cell and click Cells on the Format menu. Click the Number tab, and then click General or Number in the Category box.

Preparing AutoCAD Drawings for Import

In this tutorial, you will clean a 2D AutoCAD drawing, by deleting unnecessary objects and freezing unnecessary layers to prevent them from being imported into 3ds max. You will also prepare a 3D AutoCAD file for import, taking advantage of the benefits of both 3ds max and AutoCAD.

To successfully and efficiently use AutoCAD objects in a 3ds max scene, it's imperative that the files be properly prepared. Specifically, you'll need to pay attention to layer management in the AutoCAD drawing

Understanding ByLayer Drawing Import
The 3ds max 6 Layer Manager is similar to the Layer Properties Manager in AutoCAD. Both enable you to hide and freeze layers, and to control the visibility and color of objects on those layers. You can also determine whether a layer’s objects are plotted in AutoCAD or rendered in 3ds max, regardless of the visibility of the objects in viewports.

Once imported, each layer in AutoCAD becomes a new layer in 3ds max, and each object becomes a new object on its respective layer. Because AutoCAD generally produces a new object with each entity created, this can translate to an enormous number of entities that are imported into 3ds max. This number can be significantly reduced by converting and consolidating lines into polylines and combining objects into blocks, which are then converted into groups during import.

Applying strokes for Firework

You can change the stroke attributes of the Pen, Pencil, and Brush tools so that the next vector object you draw has the new stroke attributes, or you can apply stroke attributes to an object or path after you draw it.

The current stroke color appears in the Stroke Color box in the Tools panel, the Property inspector, and the Color Mixer. You can change the stroke color of a drawing tool or selected object from any of these three panels.

The pencil icon indicates the Stroke Color box in the Tools panel, the Propertyinspector, and the Color Mixer.

To change stroke attributes of selected objects, do one of the following:
Select from among the stroke attributes in the Property inspector.

TIP : Select Stroke Options from the Stroke Options pop-up menu for more attributes.

• Click the Stroke Color box in the Tools panel and click Stroke Options. Select from among the stroke attributes in the Stroke Options pop-up window.
• Use the options in the Property inspector or the Stroke Options pop-up window to change the stroke applied to an object.

To change the stroke color of a drawing tool:

• Press Control+D (Windows) or Command+D (Macintosh) to deselect all objects.
• Select a drawing tool in the Tools panel.
• Click the Stroke Color box in the Tools panel or Property inspector to open the color pop-up window.
• Select a color for the stroke from the set of swatches.
• Drag to draw the object.

NOTE : A newly created stroke assumes the color currently displayed in the Stroke Color box.

To remove all stroke attributes from a selected object, do one of the following:

• Select None from the Stroke Options pop-up menu in the Property inspector or the Stroke Options pop-up window.
• Click the Stroke Color box in either the Tools panel or the Property inspector and click the Transparent button

Grapic Tutorial : Welding and intersecting objects

You can create irregular shapes by welding and intersecting objects. You can weld or intersect almost any object, including clones, objects on different layers, and single objects with intersecting lines. However, you cannot weld or intersect paragraph text, dimension lines, or masters of clones.

You can weld objects to create one object with a single outline. The new object uses the welded objects’ perimeter as its outline and adopts the fill and outline properties of the target object. All intersecting lines disappear.

You can weld objects regardless of whether they overlap each other. If you weld objects that do not overlap, they form a weld group that acts as a single object. In both cases, the welded object takes on the fill and outline attributes of the target object.

You can weld single objects with intersecting lines so that the object breaks into several subpaths, but its appearance remains the same

Welding the leaves to the apple creates a single object outline.

Intersecting creates an object from the area where two or more objects overlap. The shape of this new object can be simple or complex, depending on the shapes you intersect. The new object’s fill and outline attributes depend on the object you define as the target object.

Tutorials for Design Visualization Professionals

Here you will find a set of tutorials aimed specifically at the design visualization professional. Whether you are an architect, a mechanical engineer, or an industrial designer, these lessons will provide you with the fundamentals of using 3ds max in the context of your work. Doing these exercises will get you quickly productive with 3ds max.

Features Covered in This Section

• Working with and importing AutoCAD files
• Opening DRF Files
• AEC objects
• Using snaps
• Booleans
• Using the Spacing tool
• Creating a Terrain object
• Conceptual Modeling with Primitives
• Using Daylight to create a shadow study
• Particle Systems
• Inverse Kinematics (IK)
• Market-Specific defaults
• Layer Manager
• Panorama Generator