Book Image

3ds Max Speed Modeling for 3D Artists

By : Thomas Mooney
Book Image

3ds Max Speed Modeling for 3D Artists

By: Thomas Mooney

Overview of this book

Production of 3D art is an exciting medium, but the task of modeling requires intense attention to detail, so speed and efficiency are vital. This book breaks down speed modeling workflow in 3ds Max into stages you can easily achieve, with a focus on hard surface modeling and methods you can apply to your own designs."3ds Max Speed Modeling for 3D Artists" will help level up your 3D modeling skills. It focuses on hard surface modeling, and shows the range of tools and techniques in 3ds Max 2013.This book shows content creation methods aimed at 3ds Max modelers preparing to show their skill to the industry. The key feature of modeling that artists must exhibit is speediness while preserving technical accuracy. The author helps you follow set project guidelines while pushing creativity and outlines the entire workflow from concept development to exporting a game-ready model.The book begins with introductions for new users to the interface and modeling tools, and progresses to topics aimed at users already familiar with 3ds Max, who want to improve their content creation process. You'll also see ways 3ds Max content is used with other applications, like sculpting software and game editors, and learn features of speed modeling, efficient workflow, re-use of content, and tips on getting more done, more quickly.By the end of this book you will have learned key topics in modeling, ready to face professional level work with elan.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
3ds Max Speed Modeling for 3D Artists
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Rigging the creature with CAT


Character Animation Toolkit (CAT) was originally intended to be a platform for developing multi-legged skeletons, as opposed to 3ds Max's native biped tool. It was originally written as a plugin for 3ds Max by Phil Taylor, who I worked with in my hometown of Dunedin, New Zealand, before it was acquired as a plugin by Softimage (since Phil went to work there). Now integrated into 3ds Max, CAT itself is still being developed. The newest version of 3ds Max 2013 sees some better CAT integration with MotionBuilder. On the Autodesk Area forum, you may notice Louis Marcoux in particular has posted some great demonstrations of CAT in action. So let's look at how CAT works.

  1. Open the scene \Packt3dsMax\Chapter 10\Creature_CATStart.max, or continue from where you left off. In the provided file, the different creature meshes have been set to different layers named after their resolution. Select Creature_LowRes and right-click and select Hide Unselected.

  2. Notice the mesh has...