[TUT] Neener's 3DS Max Unit Creation Guide

[neener]

I've never used Blender, so I don't have any plans to do a tutorial for it, no. That said, most of the fundamentals of this tutorial carry over insanely easily to other 3D software. I originally learnt Max, and in doing so found it so much easier to pick up Maya and XSI than I would have if I'd gone into them without any experience. Extruding a polygon is the same deal no matter which software you're using. I think it's pretty true that if you learn one 3D program, you'll find your way around any others pretty quickly.

 

[Splinter13]

wow, this is great stuff, thanks a lot neener

 

[Civkid1991]

a friend told me gmax was simmliar to 3d max... anyone use that... anyone think this tutorial would work with it? (i haven't downloaded it... just what to find out first )

 

[neener]

a friend told me gmax was simmliar to 3d max... anyone use that... anyone think this tutorial would work with it? (i haven't downloaded it... just what to find out first )

Gmax is essentially exactly the same program as 3D Studio Max, but with a lot of stuff stripped out. They wanted to create a free version of the software that was tailored specifically towards game content creation. So they took out all the stuff that is typically geared towards TV/movie animation (like all the complex lighting renderers and so on) and released Gmax with just the modelling stuff. If you can't get your hands on 3DS Max, then Gmax is definitely worth a shot. My tutorial ought to be completely and utterly transferrable over to Gmax, so you can follow it along perfectly.

The only proviso to using Gmax is that you'll probably run into some compatibility issues. If, for example, you wanted to use the import scripts to get NIFs into Gmax, you might have trouble. Also, if you try to load somebody else's .max file, you could have problems. The other major downside, and I do consider it a pretty huge downside, is that you can't render anything in Gmax. Normally I keep checking my models and especially my textures by rendering out a test shot. You can't do that in Gmax, which means you'd have to either create something and hope for the best, or undergo the painful process of exporting the whole NIF and viewing it in NIFviewer every time you want to check your work.

 

[Psychic_Llamas]

Heya neener. I was wondering... (you can tell i want something cant you ) would you be able to write up another tutorial for making modles into NIFS, then exporting them and putting them in the game?

 

[neener]

Heya neener. I was wondering... (you can tell i want something cant you ) would you be able to write up another tutorial for making modles into NIFS, then exporting them and putting them in the game?

Rabbit already has at least two tutorials dealing with exactly that. They're in his sig.

Here's his tutorial on exporting: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=161099

And here's his tutorial on adding units to CIV: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=176460

 

[Squirm]

So, this tutorial owns. I'd never modelled using editable mesh before, perceiving it as a deprecated in favour of editable poly. Here's my Night Gobbo, Fat Tony, mushroom pushin' Mafiosa of the Eight Peaks Family. He's a fungi to be around (shut up, that's the best pun you'll read all day).



It's a shame Neener didn't do continue the tutorial explaining the techniques he used for the textures, because blowed if I can figure them out, hence poor Tony's block colourations.



I ran into a couple of problems, bar the unintentional fatty facedness. Some of the texture for the face has bled into the hood interior, which I suspect is due to the close proximity of the face and hood components in the UV's; something I can't be bothered fixing now.



Also, at one point I had to delete a stray face that was unneeded within the hood, whilst retaining all of its vertices. I think this is causing the "tearing" that can be discerned when peering closely at the top of the head.



Next stop - texturing tutorials.

 

[LoneTraveller]

I'm having difficulties loading my reference picture in 3ds. It seems that what ever the size of the plane or picture the program only shows like a center square area of it. I looked at all the right mouse buttons options and the closest thing I get too is scale which doesnt help much.

I'm using a trial version #11.

any help would be appreciated.