Low Poly in 3DS Max 7

[Dusty]

I was wondering if anyone could post some tips with doing low-poly in 3DSMax 7? I'd also appreciate links to sites that have written tutorials for it... I'm having a hard time finding some...

And also some questions:

Right now I'm trying it out, and I'm very new to 3D modelling, but I've managed to make a NES and texture it. But I'm having a problem with the rear and front faces. Because the bottom of the NES comes inward, the front and rear polygon textures are being distorted:

See how the bottom of it starts get all distorted? The stuff on the bottom needs to be rendered straight.


Also, how can I make a gif of my model rotating?


And is there a way I can change my view(or render) to Orthographic? I'm also interested in assigning degree-specific views(say I want to view my model at a 45degree angle).

[Squiggly_P]

I don't know much about 3DS MAX (I use Blender), so I can't give you specific instructions, but I can possibly help you:

The texture issue is most likely one of two things:  it's either the way the UV is laid out or a perspective glitch.  The latter seems like an odd problem for a $3000 professional application to have, but the way the distortion is happening, it really looks like a perspective glitch.  It might just be the way the texture is mapped to that plane, tho (is the model unwrapped or did you texture it some other way?).  Seeing the wireframe and layout would be useful in solving that problem.

I can't really answer your other questions, tho I suspect Google would be pretty useful to find solutions to most of these.

[ptoing]

The problem is triangulation. All user level graphics cards usually handle tris and not quads or ngons.

I suspect that you have mapped that whole front to a rectangular bit of texture, right?



So let's say the 2nd one is how your polygon actually looks (shapewise) and the first one is how you have it on the UV, then you would expect it to look like the 2nd one, but it looks like the 3rd one. I did not get this for quite some time, but if you look at an image like that you can see where the diagonal goes and how it affects the texture.

There are 3 things you can do afaik.

1) Have the shape on the UV correspond closer to that of the actual polygon.When you UV Unwrap it select the 2 front polygons and then click planar and then reset. This makes sure that the shape is retained.

2) Add more polygons.

3) Sometimes it helps to flip the edge in the middle of the quad, tho it escapes me where you can do that in Max atm. I guess it should be possible somewhere in the UV Unwrap window or on rightclick in Edge mode.

[Kazuya Mochu]

Have the shape on the UV correspond closer to that of the actual polygon

this is definetly the best way to go.

[Dusty]

Thanks for the help, and that makes a lot of sense Ptoing, and very useful.
What I did was start out with a cube and textured it. Then I figured I should add the slants on the bottom. After I did that is when it got all distorted.

So how would I correspond the UV shape to the shape of the polygon?
Nevermind, I figured it out(I think). I selected the face of the rear/front and went to modifiers > uv coordinates > unwrap UVW. Then I click edit from the right menu's rollout, and then in the new window > mapping unfold.



Also, for future reference since this seems very useful, how do I add more polygons?

[Howard Day]

You can add more polygons to the object but using the "Cut" tool in Editable Poly. You can also use the slice modifier to add larger, precisely-oriented straight line cuts to the surface. By default it will affect the whole object, but if you have faces selected, then apply it to the object, it will affect only those faces. Kind of handy.

[ndchristie]

the best way i know to flip the edge is just to do it manually by breaking the face off and moving the vertices.  there may be a more effective way but i find that this is quick and efficient.

nevermind i thought we were talking about something entirely different...

[snader]

sort of offtopic, but the easiest way i can think of is to use 'edit triangulations' in the polygon mode

[Dusty]

I tried that... it didn't seem to have any effect.

[ndchristie]

there's also a "turn" tool in Edge mode that ptoing showed me.

as for adding polygons, you can use the cut too for quick additions, or insert vertices in edge mode and connect them by hand.

[Dusty]

Thanks for the tips everyone, I actually learned a lot.

Another question. I find it easy, when working on symmetrical things, to just do one side and flip it. It's a lot easier than bothering to make I do the same to both sides.

However, when I flip the object I end up having two vertices in the same position(one vertex from each object), and I can not find out how to turn them into just one vertex.

[Howard Day]

Dusty: Your best bet is to use a vertex weld - usually found under Editable-Poly > Weld (you need to have the verts selected) give it a low threshold (less than .01) and that should fix that problem for you. Alternatively, you might want to look into the "Symmetry" modifier, which does all of this fun stuff for you.

[Dusty]

Ohh thanks about the Symmetry. As for the weld, I've used it but the effects don't seem to be permanent. If I make any other changes the welding seems to disappear.

[Howard Day]

Huh. Might be that the face normals of the flipped faces are inversed. Select them and hit "Flip" in Editable Poly. Might fix your problem.

[ndchristie]

i use collapse with the two selected when i need to stick them together.

however, i really do tihnk that symmetry modifier is the best and fastest.

[Kazuya Mochu]

when you mirror something into an instance, you cant just weld the vertices. it has to be the same object for that to work. in addition to that, you cant attach an instance to another. so what you have to do is collapse on of the objects into an editable polly and then attach the second one to it. this way they become one object. then you can select the vertices you want to weld and just press weld and play around with the threshold until you get half the vertices you have selected


hope this helps.

symetry can be a good alternative, but it also has some issues. like generating extra vertices and edges is your mirror border isn't perfectly planar.

[ndchristie]

when you mirror something into an instance, you cant just weld the vertices. it has to be the same object for that to work. in addition to that, you cant attach an instance to another. so what you have to do is collapse on of the objects into an editable polly and then attach the second one to it. this way they become one object. then you can select the vertices you want to weld and just press weld and play around with the threshold until you get half the vertices you have selected

you should be able to attach if you clone as a copy?

symetry can be a good alternative, but it also has some issues. like generating extra vertices and edges is your mirror border isn't perfectly planar.

In low poly, you can pretty easily just go along the seam once you have collapsed the modifier.  In high poly, it doesn't add too much, so who cares .  The middle ground is where things get annoying.

[Kazuya Mochu]

you can, but the point is having and instance so that when you change one, the other changes too.

[ndchristie]

you can, but the point is having and instance so that when you change one, the other changes too.

which is also the point of a symmetry modifier .

mirroring to an instance is effectively the same as telling symmetry not to slice or weld?

[Dusty]

Learning a lot with this help, thanks

Also another problem I've run into... when working with planes, one side is always invisible. If I rotate around to look at it, it just kind of makes the whole thing disappear. Makes it hard when I'm trying to work lowpoly. Any way to not make this happen?

[Kazuya Mochu]

Dusty, I would sugest you get used to it because its a great way to know how many pollys you are working with. some game engins dont suport double face so you have to create the faces on the other side. by now seeing them in max, is a way to remember that you have to create them if you wanna see them.

BUT if you really dont want to bother, you can allways go to object properties and uncheck backface culling.

ndchristie: "which is also the point of a symmetry modifier "

well yes but hear me out. if you are workign on a mirrored instance you wanna be doing that from the first moment. not modeling something and in the end applying a symetry and seeing the result for the first time. which makes you then apply the symetry at the beginning, then going down in the stack and checkin the "show end result" button to get to see what's happening on both sides. what happens with that is that you will allways get those annoying yellow lines.
so the best would be: modeling using a mirrored instance. when finished, delete the instance, apply the symetry and check for any mess along the middle edges.

[ndchristie]

I'm not sure what the issue with yellow lines is? haha.  i mean, if you really want to see them without it it's as simple as f9 or deselecting the entity, and it seems like a much more effective way to work from the single modifier.

[Kazuya Mochu]

well I gess we work differently then. I hardly ever EVER render a 3d lowpoly model and I also hardly ever deselect it. and if have symetry one and are down on the stack in editable poly you have to deactivate any subobject level to be able to deselect it and once you deselect you have to go back down the stack again to continue working.

I mean it may not bother you or alot of other people, I cand surely understand that. Its just I never got used to working with it like that and those 3 to 5 second kind of break my flow.

its not about you being wrong or me being wrong. its just a different workflow.