How it works:

Just in case you missed that… this script allows you to simply attach the selection. (note: not group).

There is somewhat of a restriction on something so simple though, Max doesn’t like attaching hundreds of objects together at once as it has to store all of that overly helpful undo information. Aside from disabling Undo’s (not recommended) there is no real way around this. One trick is to just export your meshes as a .obj and then import it back in. On the import options make sure “Import as single mesh” is selected. This is for extreme cases only though.

With this in mind, and to avoid the issue of your memory running out and Max crashing, my script will only attach the first 50. (So if you have 150 objects, running the script once will dwindle it to 100, run it again to bring it down to 50, and again for 1… you get the idea). I don’t know why I didn’t loop that… hmm, must have been a reason, oh well… one for later eh?

Download:

http://www.garydave.com/scripts/Combine.mcr

Installation:

Drag and drop the combine.mcr file into the viewport. The script can now be added to hotkeys/toolbars/quad-menus via the customise user interface dialog:

Download.

The majority of functions work on multiple selections. Quadrify, Clean Normals and Snapshot are the exceptions to the rule, but I will/might look into adapting those for multiple objects.

Download the script from the link above, and follow the images below for install* instructions:

*if the “DavesTools” category does not appear, you will need to reboot 3ds max. It will be in the list then, for rizzie.

Haven’t you always wanted a sphere made entirely out of quads? No?… oh.

This tutorial demonstrates how to create a sphere made up of quads (four sided polygons). Its main advantage over a standard sphere is that you will not get any “pinching” at the tops and bottoms (where regular spheres meet with a bunch of triangles). Your quad sphere can be as dense as you want it to be, just play with the settings.

Right click image to download video.

A brief tutorial covering the essentials of baking ambient occlusion with the Mental Ray render system in 3ds max.

Rendering Ambient Occlusion:

Fig.1

First off, let’s take a look at actually rendering an ambient occlusion map with mental ray materials (if you’re still using a skylight with the scanline renderer, your grandparents called and they just told me to tell you to get with the times). To access the mental ray renderer (if it’s not enabled by default) you’ll need to open your Render Setup window (Hotkey: F10) and assign it, see Fig.1

With Mental Ray enabled you’ll have access to a whole new set of materials (plus all of the original ones too). The one we’re after is aptly titled “mental ray” and should be seen as a sort of “standard” material that you’d get by default, except this one is… well, it’s mental ray specific! Here’s a quick clip demonstrating how to use a mental ray material, set up ambient occlusion map and apply it to an object. I find it’s quite handy to do this first as it allows you to play with the settings and see how it will eventually turn out when we get to the baking stage.

It’s worth noting that you do not need to apply a mental ray material to the objects you wish to bake, 3ds max will do this automatically. But it’s worth knowing how to do it yourself if you ever want to simply overlay an ambient occlusion pass onto an existing render.

So that’s the rendering and settings tweak done, let’s just go ahead and do a standard bake.

Baking Ambient Occlusion:

The most difficult part of baking a texture doesn’t really have much to do with the baking process at all, so theoretically… there is no difficult part to baking a texture. The one thing you have to ensure though, is that your mesh is neatly unwrapped. If you wanted to bake the “perfect” ambient occlusion map from the get go you would need a 100% unique unwrap. By which I mean, no mirroring or overlaying UV shells. And be careful where you scale UV Shells too, a lot of people will tell you to keep them all 1:1 but it’s really dependant on what you’re unwrapping and where seams will meet.

In most cases however, mirroring and overlaying UV shells is standard practice in the world of efficiency. You can often get away with it in certain situations, but if you’re getting strange results on overlapped UV shells, it will be because they’re overlapped. For this example I’m just going to apply a rather lazy unqiue unwrap to my mesh (which you’ll see the result of as I do the bake), if you need a tutorial in unwrapping too… you might want to go look one up now. Or, you can choose to let 3ds max unwrap it automatically, which is rarely recommended. Anyway, here’s how you do it:

You may have noticed that the render 3ds max produces while doing the bake is not the same as the file it saves. You should only be using the saved file it outputs, never use the render it previews on screen.

And that’s how it’s done, usually from this point onwards you would take your Ambient Occlusion into photoshop and overlay it over your diffuse texture. (or use the AO to aid the beginning of the diffuse-texturing process)

Projecting Ambient Occlusion:

This is where we take it one step further and project the light information from one mesh to another. This is the exact same method used with baking normal maps inside 3ds max, the only difference being we’re baking light/shadow information, as opposed to normals information.

All you need is two meshes, the “detailed” mesh that we’ll get our information from, and the “simplified” mesh that will be getting the projections. Fortunately, we only need to have mapping coordinates  on the simple version in order for this to work, the “detailed” mesh doesn’t need an unwrap/uvw map as we’re essentially just ‘stealing’ its renderable properties. Here’s how it’s done… I’ll even throw in a little unwrapping for you:

One thing worth mentioning… that in hindsight, my “simple” object was a little bit too simple. The better you can re-create the original shape (while obviously still being efficient) the better the bake will turn out, thus catching details that would, as seen in this instance… otherwise be left out.

General rules for a successful projection cage are as follows:

• Keep it tight to the “simple” mesh.
• Ensure it is always outside of the “detailed” mesh.

Combining these two aspects can be a little tricky on more complicated models, but once you’ve done it once, or made a few mistakes and then done it right, you’ll soon learn how to tame the beast.

Download video(swf) files:

• Rendering Ambient Occlusion.
• Baking Ambient Occlusion.
• Projecting Ambient Occlusion.

In this tutorial I show you how you can model a mouth in under 5 minutes. Why is under 5 minutes important, I hear you ask? It isn’t.

Right click image to download video.

There are quite possibly thousands of tutorials that cover this topic for 3ds max, but I’ve yet to see anyone do it the same way I do it.

If you’re reading this tutorial to gain insight on this particular subject, then chances are you’re relatively new to the program, with this in mind I hereby welcome you to the wonderful world of 3ds max.  Now let’s get to it.

First of all, let’s set up some general settings to make life a little bit easier. Go to Customize > Preferences > Viewports and ensure the highlighted is as follows:

Honestly, these settings are so “standard” among so many 3d folk I know that I often wonder why they’re not set like this by default. If you had to change any of yours to match, you may need to restart 3ds max for the changes to take effect. Allow me to quickly run through why these settings are good to have on by default:

Backface Cull on Object Creation:

Backfacing is quite simply, the back of faces. But faces (polygons) are one sided. In a lot of cases (especially with blueprints), it is wise to cull those backfaces out. You could do it manually by going into the properties of the object, ooorr you could just set it up here, so all objects created will come without backfacing by default.

Display Drivers:

Unless your PC is as old as dinosaurs, there’s really no need to use anything other than Direct3D (as opposed to OpenGL). Techy software developers with odour issues and problems letting go of the past may argue with me on this one, but they’re not 3d artists. We need good viewport performance!

Geometry – Display All Triangle Edges:

By far one of the most annoying features in 3ds max, having this option enabled will display edges that are otherwise hidden (though still accessible). Now don’t get me wrong… triangles have their place, but they’re just fugly to look at.

Background/Download Texture size:

I don’t really know which is which, or whether they both do the same/similar thing, but checking the “Match Bitmap Size as Closely as Possible” will display an accurate version of your textures in the viewport, instead of a pixellated mess. (Will require a restart for changes to take effect)

Anyway, that’s that little lesson done with, time to actually get on with the tutorial:

I prefer this method, one texture, no need to match things up in Photoshop… 3ds max has a grid! No need to set accurate plane dimensions (based on dimensions of the image).  Perfect, hassle free, easy… beautiful, really.

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If you’d rather make custom rigs in 3ds max but understand the convenience of its biped feature, then today is your lucky day. In this tutorial I show you how you can take a biped rig, strip it of its default functions, and then start piling on the custom goodness.

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This is a crude example of how you can use the Morpher Modifier in 3ds max to easily slide between facial expressions on a character.

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In this tutorial I show you how easy it is to just add decals or “stickers” onto other objects, regardless of their mapping coordinates. The “Example.jpg” I show at the beginning of the tutorial is not used in the max scene itself. It was just an example of the maps you’ll need.

(Original – applied to the object you want to decal over. Decal – your decal. Alpha – The alpha of your decal)

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This tutorial covers the uber basics of auto key animation. The only thing worth mentioning is right at the end I ‘Shift – Drag’ the first frame to the last frame, this creates a duplicate frame, allowing it to loop.

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This tutorial demonstrates how the Sweep modifier can be used to automatically weld areas that would usually just intersect. It’s worth noting however, that Sweep is only accessible on splines. To intersect editable meshes automatically you would need to look into a Boolean operation. (Or do it manually)

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Link constraints are a handy way to throw in a ‘temporary’ hierarchy into an animation. Its most common use is to simply pick things up and put them back down again, without having to manually key in any information to the object you want to be picked up. An example would be a character with a sword. You would want the sword to be independent from the hand until the character picks it up/draws it out.

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I can’t take credit for this one, as it was originally a small written tutorial on Maxforums by one Michael Grote, which I thought could easily be shrunk down into a little 3 minute video. It’s alright, we’re totally BFF’s.

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In this tutorial we look at two common methods for subdividing in 3ds max. The first (and probably most common) method is to use chamfers or insets on the base mesh to control the effects of the subdivide. The smaller your chamfer is, the harder that edge will be, and if you wanted a nice smooth ramp, simply increase the chamfer amount.

The second method looks at doing the same, but using Smoothing Groups instead of chamfers/insets to  define the end result of the Turbosmooth.

Right click image to download video