Model a High Poly Airframe Missile Launcher in 3ds Max – Day 3
Tutorial Details
- Program: 3ds Max
- Difficulty: Advanced
- Completion Time: 1-2 hours
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
In this six hour long, intermediate/ advanced level tutorial you will learn to model a high poly RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile Launcher step by step. You will learn to use many of 3ds Max’s poly and spline modeling tools, while keeping the model as light weight and simplified as possible, and only using subdivision in the areas that require it.
This tutorial is Day 3 in a series – Go to Day 1, or Day 2.
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.
Video 3
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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
Video 4
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Note: click the ‘Monitor’ icon to view tutorial in full-screen HD.
This tutorial is Day 3 in a series – Go to Day 1, or Day 2.
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Thanks Ben! You are the men!
Your tutorials are simply fantastic!!! Any chance of a cartoon character modeling tutorial?
See you!
Thanks Paola! As for a tutorial on a cartoon character.. I wish I could do one, but I don’t really have any experience in that area! I usually stick to hard surface objects, rather then characters or organic type models. (Although I think I’ll try and expand into that area soon! as Character modeling was my original goal, way back when I first started modeling :) ….So at this time, I really wouldn’t be the right person to do a tutorial on a cartoon character :) …Sorry about that!
Yay , Finally ! Good work !
hey, the link of the first video on day 3 points to the first video of day 2..
please fix so we can fully enjoy!
thanks..
Fixed! Sorry:)
In wich tutorial we need this guy again?
You said it in the last part :D
-Matthias
Hey Matthias, I was just alluding to the possibility of a future follow up tutorial to this one. At the time, I wasn’t sure how much I could say regarding it…but I can tell you now that there will be a follow up series, where Kaleb Aylsworth will be doing a game version of the airframe launcher. He’ll be covering modeling the low poly, uvmapping, baking out maps and texturing!…It’s going to be awesome! :)
Nice news, it will be cool to see a complex model being textured!
I wonder when it will be done… :-)
Grow up…
Grow up? I’m confused…nothing immature was said here.
I misunderstood Matthias comment, my bad sry about that
First class Tate brothers stuff like always! By the way I finished the RPG Launcher tutorial from your brother some days ago.
Now I heard another tutor is going to make a low poly version and texturing for this model… Well, what can I say? Can’t wait for that!!! :-)
Again this website is awesome! I learned here much more than on my uni…
Thanks Fred, Glad to hear it :)
Hello, I have been making video training tutorials for CAD/CAM for over 15 years now so I can appreciate the work involved. There are many websites that provide 3D Max training videos but your’s are by far, superior. Its one thing to make a training video but it’s a completely other thing to make great ones. You and your brother consistently provide great ones. Thank you!
Yup. These tutorials are great. Other sites charge for high quality video tuts like these. I can never thank the tuts plus staff enough.
Thank Ben for the quality….we just found him:)
To both Ben and Chris Tate.
You guys really put a lot of thought into preparing these tutorials.
Thanks so much for these!
What a great tut! Kudos to you and your brother for your efforts! I just decided to get back into 3d and Max after a long layoff and these tuts have really got me inspired.
BTW. what is the shortcut you use for repeating the last function? For instance when you select 2 vertices and connect.
I love the APC from “Alien” that would be a great tut!
Thanks guys,
Pete
Hey Peter, Thanks a lot! I’m glad to hear that you’re giving Max another shot! As for your question, I’m not sure if there is a keyboard shortcut for repeating the last function or not…I have separate keyboard shortcuts set up for the functions I use most often when modeling, like ring, loop, connect, etc… When I’m recording a tutorial I try to stay away from using shortcuts and do everything with the interface buttons…So for the part you’re referring to, I probably just hit my shortcut for connect out of habit :)
As for a tut on the “APC”… I’d like to, but it just has so many small parts, as well as some pretty complex ones… I think it would probably be far too long for a step by step tutorial :)
Thanks again,
cheers!
I am sure the default button for repeating the last command is the semi-colon key (;).
Hi Ben,
How r u!
we are getting much from every tut.
Please make Complete Arch viz project (Right from Floor plan to, rooom rendering every thing)
Tnx in advance
Im thinking I could sell all my green tea bottles to the recycle and put out enough to support you folks.
I was wondering if you always saw things in 3d and when you discoverd it.
Just joking about the green tea.
Thankx Ben
Your tuorials are good.
Keep it up
Thanks for this nice tutorial just fantastic perfect. I’m french so sorry for my english. Can you show us how to model a car please ??!!!!?? Thank you
Awesome tutorials as always, alltho i would really like to see some soft surface-tutorials from you guys also.
hey Ben Tate,i want to thank you,and i know ,what i say or the number of thanks thats i say ,i don’t think i can give you your value,thanks a lot man,
and could you please make to us a tut of modeling a car……..thanks againe ;)
Jippy! I made it. You make great tutorials Ben. Keep up the good work.!
I love you men !! I learn many things from you…any car modeling tutorial ???
Great tutorial Ben ! It is the best tutoriel that I saw!!
Could you make a tutoriel on a modelling of a Boeing?
Thanks! From France
Great tutorial Ben ! It is the best tutoriel that I saw!!
Could you make a tutorial on a modelling of a Boeing?
Thanks! From France
One of the best tuts I’ve ever seen!
But one question – What’s the polycount of final model?
Hey man, Thanks a lot for the comment!
As for the poly count….someone asked a similar question on day 2 of the tut, so I’m just going to re-post my original reply below :)
The final tutorial version shown in the render above has about 860,778 polys. That’s not including any of the wire bands. The wires are extremely high-res. The base mesh for each band is 4,464 polys, with 2 iterations of turbosmooth applied, it’s 71,424 polys for each one! And yes, that is just insane! :) Especially considering that there are 56 bands on the final model. If anyone’s doing the math, the 56 turbosmoothed bands equals around 3,333,744 polys!! So the full final model with all pieces including any turbosmoothed ones is a staggering 4,860,522 polys! But like I mentioned in the tutorial, the band detail could be achieved using a bump map instead of actually modeling it in… In the end it would save about 3.3 million polys :) and as you can see in the final render above, most of that detail is virtually invisible anyway :)
Thanks again!
Cheers
I think these wires are actually twisted ropes. So, another way of creating that is create two layers of cylinders that are twisted and bended into wire. This way doesn’t need a bumpmaping or turbosmoothing.
Hello guys,
I’ve been checking the website every day for the day 4! Is there any presumably date for its release? Atm I’m texturing the RPG Launcher from a past tutorial but I’m finishing it and would really like to start with this one, make a low poly version of it and at the end texturize! :-)
Hi Fred, there is unfortunately no exact date for the second half of this series as it has not been created yet. It should be completed sometime this month, but there are currently several other 3ds Max tutorials that need to be published before it, so it may still be several weeks before we get to see it on the site. Some of these other tutorials, however, will also be on low poly and texturing aspects, so if you really can not wait, I would recommend watching those and then applying what you learn to this project.
Hi Kaleb,
then I guess I’ll have to wait for that. I’ll start with another tutorial till it’s done.
Thanks for the info!
Thank good tutorials if you can make more. I now it take lot of time. Thanks again.
Hi Ben:
I was following your tutorial, I am impressed by your modeling techniques. Many roads lead to Rome but, your work style is highly efficient and fast.
I’m wrapped in 3D for a long time (from DOS), and old habits have created in older versions. The habit is Difficult to change on occasion, it’s like an old shoe that is comfortable but old. Perhaps this was the reasons for which I like so much your tutorial, trying to break old habits.
I found problems to download VIDEO 4 of the tutorial (each time I reach 99.6MB it freezes and is on a loop) You can fix this?
Thank you ….. Excellent work.
thanks you so much … i’m looking for some tut to texture map for some kind of this models!! Thanks you for sharing!
Just finished it after 3 days working on this :D i’ve just begun using max and this was my first tutorial after reading the Max Bible, it really helped me a lot understanding the modeling workflow! Thank you really a lot for this lesson, I think i’m going to do all of your tuts in the next days, hoping you’ll keep posting some others! :D
Thank you again Ben, you’re great!! From Italy
Wonderful tutorial!
I’ve never seen anything better!
And this is my result
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CnejBmL2C8
Keep it Simple :D
Great tutorial, explains everything brilliantly, 10/10 ! Is there any chance you can just a make a quick one part video of rendering the launcher? i have completed the tutorial but i am really bad at rendering :) it would be nice to see this model displayed in the way it deserves :)
Thanks again Ben!
You guys are awesome and with great tuts!
Ive done the first day and then I was like hell no Im not gonna finish the next two days :/
I was wondering if you could post a download to the model itself and save me the time of creating it because I really need to use it for a movie but I just dont have the time and effort to go through all this.
Please, thx
Hello Ben!, first I must say thank you very much! you’ve done a great job, thanks sincerely was very useful the tuto, I’m learning to model and I have cleared many doubts, but I do not understand something, if the poly does not have 4 sides … can be used as well? o that is not a problem instances the number of sides? for example: I’ve seen that on occasions chamfer creates more than four sides in a poly, is that a problem?
Well I hope not to bother you, and again great work! = D
Hello again Ben:
Fantastic tutorial as usual. Thank you very much!
Any word on the continuation of this regarding texturing?
Oh, and could you send me the finished models of all your tutorials so I don’t have to bother making them myself, learning something in the process, and then I can use your work in a movie that I’m gonna have someone else make cause I’ve always had sugar blown up my …..
Oops, sorry, must have been something I ate, or maybe I read ;-)
Hello Ben,
Thanks for a lot of this tutorial. I do arch vis renderings for a long time. But before that I used do basic level, props, high poly modeling etc. But in years I had lost touch and I wanted to get back to high poly modeling and then hard surface modeling then game modeling.
I saw couple of tutorials but either they were way to advanced or way to fast. But yours is the one I really found useful and have see the tutorial and followed it point to point. It’s only in the end that I was really exhausted and left the handle part.
I like how you use splines a lot, which other tutorials I saw did not use. I don’t know why.
Thanks once again.
Hi Ben,
In just one tutorial I learn a lot of things. Your tuts i’ts verry explicit. For us, the beginners, is verry important to understand how to do some thing and most important…why. Is a part of a correct workflow. Because if I d’ont understand why you do something in a part of modeling or any other stage of tutorial, is useless.
I’ll be watch in of your tutorials.
Thank you verry much!
Hi ben sir,
watched your tutorial.. i must say i have learned a lot from your tutorial.. thanks for giving time for making great tutorial :)
Thanks !!!!!!!!!!!!!! It’s really a great tutorial. Learned a lot.
Thanks again :D
Vid 2 of Day 3 doesnt work :<
Hi Nick,
Thanks for letting us know! It looks like a problem with Blip.tv again! (which hosts our videos), I’m working on fixing it right now and should have it up shortly :)
Cheers,
Ben
Hey Nick,
Video 2 is now fixed and should be working correctly!
Have a good one,
Ben
thx :D finshed it today, great tut !
Hi Ben,
finished a few moments ago!
a few days ago I started to work with 3DS Max. Before this, I’ve worked with Blender for about a year. I must say: Your tutorials are absolutely awesome!!
Before I did your tutorial, I only played around a bit with Max, but from the first second, I was able to follow your instructions!
I’ve learned so much things while doing this tutorial! Thanks Ben!