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An Introduction to 3ds Max: Polygonal Modeling, Day 2

Tutorial Details
  • Program: 3ds Max
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Completion Time: 1-2 hours

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

In the first part of the series, professional video game artist, Kaleb Aylsworth, walked you through many of the key skills that you will need to get started modeling in 3ds Max. Now, in the second part, he will demonstrate how to apply the things that you have learned by using them to make a low-poly version of Guy van der Walt’s “Retro TV Set”. You can see some more examples of Guy’s work at his portfolio website, Plasticboy.

This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1

You can find the reference image here: Retro Tv Set.


Video 1

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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

Video 2

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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.

This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1

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Special thanks to Guy van der Walt for allowing us to use his image! Check out some more samples of his amazing CG art here: www.plasticboy.co.uk.

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Discussion 50 Comments

  1. Author

    All video tuts will be available for download from now on!!

    First:P!

    • Sniper says:

      nice job dude nice job i m good with modeling i want to learn interior lighting i made house using walls when i unfreeze the celingi cant see the internal area,i mean the whole room +how shud i make it realistic.. can i send u that project and u ll fix it just apply texture and lighting and most imp thing i want to know abt camera thingy how would i show the whole room? i hope u ll guide me lil

  2. Nysuatro says:

    It was already avaible to download with a plugin from firefox :D
    But this is easier. Thanks

  3. Laurence says:

    Incredibly useful, I have learnt so much. Thank you very much!

  4. afroskate says:

    This was badly needed, Thanks Kaleb for your tutorial! You helped me out a great deal

  5. NACHO LEON says:

    HEYY TANKS FROM COLOMBIA VERY GOOD TUTORIAL

  6. Sebastian says:

    Awesome, thanks a lot!

  7. Rune says:

    Your tuts are very good Kaleb! Keep it up :)

  8. Luiz Cláudio (BRASIL0 says:

    Congratulations turorial, you explain with great patience and calm, showing all the details … of course I did not understand much because I do not speak the English language, but I noticed that you’re the man. Thank you for the tutorial!

  9. John Doe says:

    This is a noob question,
    but so lets say if I have a cube that has been I converted to a polygon.
    If I want to select the top and and bottom sides I would select one, hold down shift and select the other right? Thats not working for me for some reason. I’m using 2010. I know that’s how that works in Maya and C4d.
    Do you know what I’m doing wrong? Maybe I have something checked or unchecked somewhere?

    • John Doe says:

      I figured it out. I have to use cntrl not shift.

      • Kaleb Aylsworth says:

        Yep! Also…all that stuff is explained in the first part of the series, and re-iterated a few times in the second. A good idea might be to go through the first part, and take notes of the hot keys that are mentioned…just until you get them memorized:)

      • John Doe says:

        I was watching these intro tuts in a few different sittings so thats prob why I missed that. I should start writing this stuff down if I really want to get serious.

  10. jason says:

    now show us how to do it with c4d

    • John Doe says:

      Yea, The correct use of modeling tools in Cinema would be great. There are already tons of tuts that go over the interface. Someone made a realistic looking branch in Cinema a few weeks back but the modeling techniques that were presented were vague. There were def a lot of stuff he did that I have never seen before.

  11. franklin roosy says:

    are you speaking through a toilet paper tube or is your audio bitrate set to 56k? i can barely understand what you’re saying.

    also, if you’re going to use plasticboy’s tv image as a reference you should at least give him proper credit (unless you’d like to receive a c&d).

    • Author

      I just googled “Retro TV” and that’s what popped up. I didn’t even realize that it was CG until you mentioned it…so kudos to Plasticboy! Thanks for the heads up, and I will definitely credit him in the forward. Also, see above reply for audio issues…

      • franklin roosy says:

        his real name is Guy van der Walt…google him.

      • Author

        yeah, after your first comment I looked plasticboy up. Excellent work…a seasoned pro actually. Which explains why I thought the first image was a photo lol…..I guess I’ll need to do some deeper background probing on my reference photos next time:P

  12. Thiago Consolaro says:

    Nice job Kaleb, another good tutorial.
    I just wanted to ask you something. That was a low-poly model and the result was pretty good, what I wanna know is why you triangulted some polygons ? I mean, would those triangles look weird if I add the turbosmooth modifier just to get a better result ? Or only the smoothing groups would do the job ?
    Thanks again and congratulations.

    • Author

      manually triangulating your mesh is a way to optimize it for realtime (in-game) rendering, by eliminating any excess triangles that would be created by letting the exporter triangulate it. You should never use turbosmooth on a low-poly model, as it is a tool used for creating subdivision (high-poly) meshes, and adds way too many polys for a realtime model.

  13. Adriaan says:

    Earlier this year I sat in a preview given by Guy in Cape Town and I remember him actually showing this TV set with various treatments. Nice to see a detailed modeling tutorial on this.

  14. John Doe says:

    I’m stuck. I’m trying to see how far I can get modeling another TV on my own after watching these tutorials. I have an editable object that looks like a box. All the sides are black. Does that mean I have to Flip Normals? I’m kind of new to this… Why is it black? I can’t seem to figure out how to do this. I’ve googled and have not come up with a solution. any help would be appreciated.

    • Author

      Sorry for the reeeeally late reply. I haven’t checked this thread for comments in a while (as you can tell).

      Regarding your question, there are 2 things I can think of that might be causing this problem:

      1.) The object color: If the object color is black, and it has no material applied to it, then nothing you can do to the mesh will make it look anything other than black. To fix this…simply apply a default grey material to the object, or change the color to something else under the modify tab.

      2.) The face normals: The face normals could be flipped. To check if they are, simply right click on the object, go to “object properties” and turn on ‘Backface Cull’. If the object appears to be inside out, then the face normals are inverted. To fix this, simply apply a ‘Normal’ modifier to it, make sure ‘flip normals’ is checked on, and then collapse the modifier stack. Alternatively, you could go to the modify tab, enter into face selection mode, select all of the faces in the object, and then hit the ‘flip’ button.

      Hope that helps!

  15. sachin says:

    thanks you so much yaar …………………………………….

  16. Juand. says:

    Just finished the tutorial, was great :) any basic/new user can learn a lot from this.

    thx!

  17. Cube01 says:

    Thats a fine tutorial, i really enjoyed it :]
    Nice tricks with collapse and symmetry…
    Thank you.

  18. Cube01 says:

    You might wanna go over normal maps as it’s the second tut you’ve mentioned em.
    While watching you’r tutorials some questions comes up
    Like:

    So what’s the idea behind normal maps ?
    normal maps are they really worth it ?
    what to model and what to normal map ?

  19. it is very good tutorial for me and it has helped me well thanks men
    God will give you more

  20. Jannes says:

    Great tutorial, I look forward to seeing more ;)

  21. mohammed sariful islam says:

    something is batter than nothing. but it’s very effective tutorials.

  22. sasa says:

    Very good tut. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Regards from Montenegro.

  23. TS says:

    Kaleb, I’ve just seen your site and its just incredible work! Not only that but your taking the time to teach us with the knowlage you have gained is just amazing. Thank you for your time.

  24. TS says:

    ok i got those mixed up! But Kaleb these are awesom tutorials

  25. Steve says:

    How would i got about making this a high poly model? Would i add a subdivision modifier?

  26. Candy says:

    Hi

    Thanks a bunch for such an informative tutorial. It has really helped me a lot to learn the basics of this vast software. But there are only two parts available of this video, and the retro-tv isn’t modeled in any one of them. In your second video you tell to stay tuned for the actual modeling of the tv, but where is the third video?

  27. Fabian Wentz says:

    Hey Dude, nice tutorial. I didn’t finish it yet, but I have a few questions:

    I started with Blender and there it was said, that one should only use quads as polygongs. How is that about in 3ds Max?
    Then, I do not find any good shortcutreference on the internet… for example I don’t know the shortcut for the box selection tool, but there has to be one because you use it.
    And finally: Can you hide the gizmo and move(, rotate) and scale with your mouse while you press something, that you only can move/scale on the x,y or z axis?

    Best regards

  28. Tristan Longstride says:

    You responded to most of the questions here, and that is what I like best about this tutorial :D, authors don’t usually have time, or even try to answer them accordingly.
    Thanks for the tut Kaleb, I really appreciate that

  29. nasratwahedi says:

    Nice job Kaleb, another good tutorial

  30. ed says:

    Thank you so mcuh for your hard work, and time, to put this tutorial together. Some people might complain about adio, or whatever it is they choose to complain about, but I feel that if THEY have better tutorials to put out, then put them out and stop complaining. This place is not meant for criticism; it is a place for learning. If you don’t like the way it sounds and/or looks; do your own, better tutorial. If not SHUT UP!!! This place is for people to help people. I can remember the time when tutorials such as this was what sites referred to as “Premium Content”, and you had to pay for such a tutorial. Thank you so much (All instructors) for your time, and effort on giving us such great tutorials. :)

  31. Alan says:

    Is there a material tut to this?

  32. Novica says:

    Amazing,clear and there is no single point in this video that made me need to rewind it back to get what you’re doing.Audio is not that good though,but hey ! It is acceptable.Thank you

  33. Pete J says:

    thanks, I found the tutorial very clear and informative. hurray for my first 3ds max model ! now i’m just trying to figure out materials for it :S

  34. David F says:

    Just want to say thanks for a very helpful tutorial.

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