Software Trials - 3DS Max

Building a British Jeep

Using the skills I have developed in making modelling the shovel, bollard, lamp post, metal stairs and the Panzer tank I am going to model a British Jeep. An additional tool that I shall be using is the ProCutter tool which will enable me to cut out portions of objects to give more ‘realism’ to the model.

Step 1:

Open the 3DS Max programme.

Step 2:

Select Open a File, then file I wish to open.

Step 3:

The file opened, which was an empty scene.

Step 4:

Under the Create tab, select Plane and create the shape in the View Port.

Step 5:

Reduce the number of Length and Width Segments from the Parameters window.

Step 6:

Open the Slate Material Editor by pressing the shortcut key, M.

Step 7:

In Material click on Standard and drag the Node onto the view port and name it.

Step 8:

Under Maps, click on Bitmap. This will open the Select Bitmap Image file dialogue box from where I can select my reference image.

Step 9:

Once the Bitmap Node appears name it and then wire it to the Standard Node by clicking on the Bitmap Node Output socket and dragging it to the Standard Node Input socket labelled Diffuse Colour.

Step 10:

Ensure the object, in this instance the Plane, is selected by clicking on it then press the Assign Material to Selection by clicking on the icon at the top of the Slate Material Editor and then further across to the right I click on the Show Material in View Port.

Step 11:

To ensure the correct part of the image was visible for me to reference to I clicked on the Modify tab and then from the drop down menu selected UVW Map.

Step 12:

I then went to Edit Poly and selected Preserve UVs.

Step 13:

Again under Modify, select Vertex, I then selected the Vertices I wanted to move down. I then selected and moved the vertices I wanted to move across so the reference image was how I wanted it to work from.

Step 14:

I then repeated Steps 4-13 so that I had a reference picture to work from at all angles.

Step 15:

After I had created a box using the reference images I went to the Display tab and under the Display Properties menu I selected Backface Cull. This meant that I could see through the reference image so that I didn’t interfere with building the model. However, when I rotate around the object the front of the reference image is still visible.

Step 16:

I then selected all the reference images by clicking and dragging over them and then right-clicked and selected the Freeze Selection option. This prevents the reference images being accidently clicked and moved when building the model.

Step 17:

In the top right of the View Port I have the option to change my view from Orthographic, Realistic, Top, Bottom, Left or Right. In this instance I have selected Orthographic.

Step 18:

From the create tab I selected Box. I then created a rectangular box before going to Modify > Edit Poly > Vertex to get the box to the size I desired.

Step 19:

As I needed to modify the middle of the box to create the space for the driver and passenger seats I used the Slice Tool to slice the box several times. Under the Modify tab I select Edit Poly > Polygon and from the Edit Geometry list selected Slice Plane. The Slice Tool appears in the view port horizontally but as I wanted to create vertical slices I used the Rotation Tool, by pressing E, to turn it.

Step 20:

I then created numerous slices by pressing Slice in the Edit Geometry menu and moving the Slice Place over slightly. Once I had made the number of slices I required I clicked on the Slice Plane option again to uncheck it. IU used the Move Tool (W) to move the slices into position.

Step 21:

Under the Modify tab, and selecting Edit Poly > Vertex I was then able to pull the vertices down on one slice at a time to create the shape for the space for the driver and passenger seats.

Step 22:

I then created some edge loops. To do this, under the Modify tab I selected Edit Poly > Edge and in the Edit Edges menu selected Connect. These loops were placed length way near the top and bottom of the box and this was so that the vertices on the ends could be pulled in a little to create a smoother corner as opposed to sharp right-angles corners.

Step 23:

I created some more slices width ways across, which is to become the front and back of the vehicle, so that I could form the wheel arches. I used the same procedure as Step 20 to slice the polygons and then used the same procedure in Step 21 to create the wheel arches.

Step 24:

In between the front two wheel arches I needed to extrude some polygons from the underneath the body. This was so that I can attach a grill, bumper and headlights to the front of the vehicle. To extrude the polygons I wanted I first highlighted then went to Edit Poly > Polygon and in the Edit Polygons menu I clicked on the small box next to Extrude. This box brings up the Extrude Polygons settings to enable me to pull out and adjust the polygons.

 Step 24:

Using the Slice Tool in the manner previously described and then moving the position of the vertices I was able to create an octagon. Although this is not a perfect octagon it is the shape that I wanted for to create the headlights.

Step 25:

Under the Modify tab I went to Edit Poly > Polygon and used the move tool to push the polygon in to give the headlight a ‘socket’ for it to be placed in.

Step 26:

For the grill I created a new box, and changed the segment count to 5. Using the Edit Poly > Vertex option I pulled the top vertices out to create the shape for the grill.

Step 27:

To create the inserts of the grill I first selected the grill and pressed X to go to X-ray mode. This enabled me to see the reference image in the background. I then created a Cylinder and positioned and edited the vertices to get the right shape. As I needed more than one cylinder, I right-clicked and selected Clone. When the Clone Options dialogue box appeared I ensured Copy was selected and changed the Number of Copies to 8, then pressed OK.

Step 28:

I then went to Edit Poly and in the Edit Geometry I selected attach. After his I went to the Create tab, chose Compound Objects and in the Object Type menu selected ProCutter. In the Cutter Picking Parameters I selected Pick Stock Object.

Step 29:

To create the windscreen I used the Slice Tool to cut the area for the window.

Step 30:

To cut out the shape for the headlights in the grill I created a cylinder and reduced the number of segments to 8. I then placed the first into position and then duplicated this to the other side. I then went to Edit Poly under the Modify tab and then selected attach in the Edit Geometry menu.

Step 31:

I then followed Step 28 to cut out the headlight socket in the grill.

Step 32:

I created the bumper from a box. I went to Edit Poly > Vertex to put a slight angle on the ends of the bumper. I then used the Slice Tool to make four slices to enable me to extrude the polygons so the bumper could be attached to the vehicle.

Step 33:

The rail round the back of the vehicle was made using a cylinder.

Step 34:

The Axel's were made from Cylinders under the create tab and then edited as necessary to get the desired look.

Step 35:

The Wheels were made from Cylinders under the create tab and then edited as necessary to get the desired look.

Step 36:

Steering Wheel…

Step 37:

The Wheels were made from Cylinders under the create tab and then edited as necessary to get the desired look.

Step 38:

The seat was made from a Box shape and then vertices pulled down on the sides to give it a different shape.

Step 39:

The Medical Box on the back of the vehicle is simply a box.

Step 40:

As the British Jeep is now created I then unwrapped and textured it. See the blogs on Unwrapping and Texturing on how I achieved this.

Step 41:

After I had textured the objects I then linked them together by selecting all the different objects individually then linking them to the body and clicking on the chain link icon in the top left of the interface.

In the video below are the screenshots of how I created the British Jeep.

British Jeep Annotations