Model and Texture a Water Tower in 3ds Max – Day 1

Model and Texture a Water Tower in 3ds Max – Day 1

on Jun 10th 2010 with 62 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 3 of 12 in the Best of 3D Studio Max – Part 2 Session
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This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Model and Texture a Water Tower

In this 2-day tutorial, Chris Tate will be guiding you through the process of modelling and texturing an old water tower model using 3ds Max. Whilst day 1 covers the modelling of the tower, day 2 will take you through the UVing, texturing and rendering process.

In the first part of this tutorial, the modeling and texturing process is covered in detail, starting with the creation of a proxy model inside of 3ds max. During this stage we will block out the tower structure using simple geometry and then go through the process of adding resolution and detail, creating an aged weathered look. We’ll make use of some simple poly modeling techniques as well as Max’s paint deformation tools to create the desired effect.

Additional Files/ Plugins:

  • Download the Reference Materials for this tutorial
  • Download the Texture Source for this tutorial

      • 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.


      Video 5

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


      Video 6

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

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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

A long time Cgtuts+ author, Chris has recently moved into the role of co-editor at Cgtuts+. Chris has nearly a decade of experience working with 3D studio Max and has authored many in depth tutorials for Cgtuts+ as well as other websites. A generalist by definition, Chris spends most of his time modeling, but has many years of experience in the area's of UVMapping, Texturing, Lighting and Rendering. On rare occasions when he's not wasting away in front of his computer, Chris enjoys playing hockey, skateboarding, watching movies and playing games. You can find more of his work over at christateonline.com.  

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  • Yaroshenko Dmytro

    Awsome when gona have time will make it seems really good, modeling texturing and rendering all very good :)

  • Teo

    I really enjoyed this tutorial, particularly the Day 2 with the texturing techniques. I really wish we could see the UVW Unwrapping done with UV Layout, though.

    Thanks again for this wonderful tutorial. I hope to see your next one soon.

    • Adam

      Hey, you have seen day 2? where is it :)

  • sayed

    Thanks very much.
    Very high quality tutorials.

  • Zaidinknop

    Very nice tutoiral! Keep it up!

  • Midge

    Thanks Chris

    I always enjoy the tutorials that you and Ben produce, excellent modelling and great teaching styles.

    Thanks again

    Midge

  • LuiSerrano

    Awesome, always great tutorials series… thanks Bro.

  • MacMan

    I here rumors that 3Ds Max is coming out for Mac and its going to be off the chain!!!!! Kinda like how smoke came out for Mac! AWESOME TUT BY THE WAY!

  • akpak

    plz make a unwrap this i tried it but i cant

  • stenionet

    This is the kind of work that I like.
    One more great tutorial.

    Thanks.

  • haqzaf

    Hi,

    This is my progess link.

    http://haqzaf.deviantart.com/gallery/?loggedin=1#/d2rl1h6

    Thanks Chris,

    • gaurav

      Looks good haqzaf.

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Author

      Looking good man! Nice work!

  • Red_ufo

    The tutorial looks great, but I ‘ll resist trying It for now?
    Until I finish the Prop Modeling & Texturing series, as well as the Mailbox.

    I mainly want to get better at texturing and your series of tutorials are excellent for that.
    I also been doing you brother Ben’s tutorial sets as well, mainly to get better at modeling.

    I’m greatful to both of you for giving us all the great series of tutorials.

  • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
    Author

    Hey, Thanks guys!

    Sorry again I wasn’t able to cover the UVMapping in this particular tut. I really wish I could have shown it and I’d hate to see anyone get stuck half way. So I decided to make an additional half hour video showing the techniques I used to map the tower.

    It’s not a complete uvmapping tutorial, but I do show how to approach mapping the boards, as well as the foundation blocks, pipe, tank, roof and pinnacle in Max using the Unwrap UVW modifier and Pelt mapping. Like I said, it’s not a complete step by step tutorial, but hopefully it should help out anyone who’s having a problem :)

    Here’s the download link:
    http://www.christateonline.com/Tutorials/Tutorial_Content/Old_Water_Tower_UVMapping_Techniques.zip

    • mmar

      thx chris
      i was searching it too

  • Vonster

    Shit is looking sexy man, lol you getting better! :D

  • Magpiepixie

    Thanks for the tut! I rarely work in 3DSmax singularly so I ported over the modeling just fine to Softimage. Got all my uv’s layed out in MAYA and now ready for textures. Gonna apply them in 3DSMax so I can use the VRay Renderer. It’s gonna look sweet for my portfolio!

  • Ant Gray

    You also may just move polygon, instead of slicing. That’s easier.

  • David Nordahl

    The Tates always have the best tutorials, but sometimes I just mute them and follow along visually. lol

  • http://www.jeromecyr.com Jerome Cyr

    Here is my progress, took me about 2 hours.. My first attempt to model something since i graduated!

    http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6012/watertower1.jpg

  • WitherVoice

    I enjoy your tutorials very much, Chris, but I have a suggestion/request for later.

    Could you look into running a noise filter on your audio? You have that grey-noise waterfall going on your audio commentary, and personally I don’t think it adds any value to your videos… rather the opposite! As an added bonus, clean audio tends to compress better for smaller video size.

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Author

      Totally agree, I’ve actually tried to get rid of the noise on every tutorial I’ve done. I use Camtasia to record the tuts and it has a lot of audio enhancement options. Everything from noise, clipping and clicks removal to multiple settings to even out the volume levels. I always experiment with multiple options before outputting the final videos, but it usually ends up making the audio sound even worse!

      In the case of the water tower tut, I actually removed the noise and converted about half of it over to flash before I realized my voice had a pretty noticeable echo. So I had to go back, turn the noise back on and output everything again. The echo seems to be a common problem I have when I do noise removal, either that or it sounds like I’m recording the tut from inside a metal barrel…

      I’m not exactly sure what causes the problem, I suspect it might just be the capture on my sound card or yet another problem caused by that piece of junk known as Windows Vista. While my mic isn’t exactly “high end” I don’t think it’s the problem. I share an office with my brother Ben, we use the same mic to record our tuts and the same software and settings. The only difference being he uses a Windows XP machine and I use a Vista one. He has no problems removing the noise from his videos.

      So I think it’s most likely Vista (the worst OS ever made). It causes me all kinds of display issues in Max as well. I hear Windows 7 is the shit, so I’m hoping to upgrade as soon as possible, in the mean time I’ll run noise removal on my next tutorial and you guys can let me know if it sounds better or worse :)

      Cheers!

  • mark

    great tutorial, poly counts alittle high tho :)

    thanks

  • BKK

    Hey, just started the tut and I am pretty excited.

    Just wanted to make a comment about the begining, when you’re setting up the legs of the tower.

    Once you create the box, position it, convert to editable poly then cut.

    Could you not follow the same steps BUT instead of going through the hassle of cutting, you could select the top face of the poly and drag it to the left.

    You’ll still maintain the flat surface you were going, in fact when I did it there was no difference…just thought it would a little more efficient, but if you’re completely new than your method is a nice way to get exposed to the cut tool.

    Anyway off to finish the tut, thanks for posting this!

  • David Nordahl

    Here’s my progress :)
    http://imgur.com/MDj6G.png
    Yet another great tutorial, keep ‘em coming!

  • (more)

    Also, an extra tutorial on texturing the wood with things such as moss and the noise or w/e you have applied, would be GREATLY appreciated! ^^

  • SXVBAKA

    Dude is a very cool tutorial.
    But i have problems with video 3! i cant see it help!

    • http://www.badgrenola.com Matt Brealey

      Hi SXVBAKA,

      I’ve just checked video 3 and it seems to be working here. Let me know if you still have any problems, and I’ll see what I can do :)

      Matt

  • trev

    chris , you offer the most comprehensive tutorials on the web. easy to follow. brilliant. only thing is it sounds like you are sitting outside in the wind on this one

  • zahid

    great tutorial

  • Mooey

    Amazing tutorial, picked up so many tips.

    Thank you so much :)

  • Jeremy

    Spectacular tut once again. Lots of good information and techniques as always. But uhhh, I have to ask, what is UP with the naming conventions on the video files? I mean 166, 581, 843, etc…and in no logical order. Or, is there a method that I’m not seeing here?

  • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
    Author

    Hey Jeremy,

    Good question?… I actually have no idea!

    I named them “Water Tower Modeling” Parts 1 to 6…. and “Water Tower Texturing” Parts 1 to 8, before handing them over to cgtuts. So maybe it’s just something that happens on the back end with Blip.

    • http://www.badgrenola.com Matt Brealey

      Hey guys! Chris is absolutely right. The renaming is something that happens automatically when we upload everything to Blip. I’m currently looking to see if there’s any way of renaming the files – if there is, rest assured it’ll get done :)

      Cheers!

      Matt

    • Jeremy

      Eh, its all good, I got them all renamed in order. I was just a little baffled by it.

      On another note, you state that you exported all pieces to Headus. Would it be advisable to export on groups, such as all the deck boards, the ladder, etc as whole obj’s? Or Will that cause problems when they come back in as a single piece?

  • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
    Author

    Hey Jeremy,

    When exporting pieces out to UV Layout, I usually prefer to keep everything single, and do it one piece at a time. That being said… it can take forever depending on the model, so you could try exporting some of it out in groups.

    After the whole thing was mapped, I ended up attaching everything together into one object anyway. So it shouldn’t matter if the pieces are attached together. But if you want to play it safe, just check on “multiple” when you import the obj’s back into Max. That should keep the pieces separated from one another and avoid any possible problems later on. You might also want to uncheck “obj smooth groups” and set the smooth group spinner to “0” as well, to avoid any smoothing errors on import :)

    If you want to skip all of that and just map everything inside of Max (which is a lot faster) You can download the additional video I put together showing how to unwrap the tower using just the Unwrap modifier inside of Max.

    Here’s the link:

    http://www.christateonline.com/Tutorials/Tutorial_Content/Old_Water_Tower_UVMapping_Techniques.zip

    Hope this helps,
    Cheers!

    • Jeremy

      Ehh, you and Ben have already sold me on Headus. I went ahead and did as groups, and just let it keep them attached together by group, and haven’t noticed any issues with smoothing groups. One odd thing that I noticed is every single material slot now has a white ball in it, coming back from Headus, even though I tried resetting the slots. Nothing I cant deal with, but wondering if there was a setting that will prevent that from happening in the future?

  • http://behance.net/rogerneves Roger Neves

    I’m downloading.. Must be very cool.
    I love everything the CGtuts does!!!

  • shero

    thank you for this wonderful tutorial

  • Evgeny

    Chris, very good tut!
    Thanks!

  • Nick

    Here’s my progress on this. Without the UV mapping complete. That will come later when I learn how to do that part lol

    http://itchyjuffowup.deviantart.com/#/d39h5ej

  • http://na Chris

    I second the UV layout. That step should not have been left out. As UV layout is one of the harder things to do right!

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Author

      Hey Chris,

      The only reason I left out the Uvmapping portion of the tutorial was because I was specifically asked by Kaleb (the Cgtuts editor at the time) to skip the Uvmapping on this particular tut. I know people were interested to see the process, so I went ahead and created a short followup tutorial covering the UV’s.

      You can download the video here:
      http://www.christateonline.com/Tutorials/Tutorial_Content/Old_Water_Tower_UVMapping_Techniques.zip

      Hope it helps you out,
      Cheers!

  • Zeroo

    video 5 died! check please

  • Dan Tran

    episode 5 is not playing

  • http://www.bentateonline.com Ben Tate
    Staff

    Hey Guys,

    Thanks for letting us know! It seems Blip (which hosts our videos) is experiencing some issues. As a few of our videos have gone down recently! We’re working on getting this figured out and we’ll hopefully have it fixed as soon as possible!

    Sorry for any inconvenience!!

  • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
    Author

    Hey guys,

    Video 5 is now fixed! Our apologies again for the inconvenience!

    Cheers!

  • Jamie Studzinski

    I’m using 3Ds Max 2010 and when I use the pelt option for the UVW Unwrapping I don’t have all the options that you do, Chris. Is there something I am missing here?

  • WeedTiger

    I’m at id 3 atm and already learned a bunch of little things that help met an awefull lot thanks a billion.

  • Daf Morgan

    Fantastic tutorial! Thanks so much!

    Hey is there a way to send you guys a couple of tutorial requests?

    Thanks again!
    Daf

  • derek spinner

    your guys are really good at the tutorials. keep em coming. i am learning a lot making this water tower.

  • skoville

    Well it’s been a year since getting video “5 fixed, LOL, can anyone e-mail it or post a link, please?

    Great tut, Chris, thank you.

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Author

      Hey Skoville,

      Sorry man! we’ve fixed this multiple times but for some reason it continues to be an issue. Honestly I don’t know what the hell is going on over at Blip, but we’ve been having a number of videos drop over the past several months.

      It seems to be totally random and only affects certain users ability to play the videos. For instance video 5 seems to play fine for me, but obviously it’s still not working for you and others.

      Anyhow, I’m uploading the video to our server right now and will post a direct download link for you as soon as it’s done :)

      Thanks! and sorry for the hassle!
      Chris

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Author

      Here it is! (just Right Click and ‘Save As’ to download.)

      http://cgtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/000_Video_Downloads/Cgtuts-WaterTowerModelingDay1Pt5.mp4

      Cheers!

      • skoville

        Thanks, Chris! Glad I checked back. You do great job and make it fun.

  • http://www.manateestudios.com Aaron

    I wish that the UV unwrapping was done. =\ Are all cgtuts missing something, or just the free ones?

    • http://www.manateestudios.com Aaron

      Or if I do buy a premium membership, can I get the UV unwrapping for this tutorial?

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Author

      Hey Aaron,

      I actually did record a tutorial covering the UVMapping on the water tower. I would have liked to include it with the original post here on Cgtuts+, but was asked to skip it by the editor at the time. So that’s why it’s missing.

      After receiving a bunch of requests, I decided to do it anyway and put the videos up on my personal website.

      Although it’s a little out dated now, the workflow I used is pretty universal, so you shouldn’t have any problems following it. I was using 3ds Max 9 at the time, so the interface may look a little different if you’re using a newer version of Max.

      You can download the videos from here:
      http://www.christateonline.com/Tutorials/Tutorial_Content/Old_Water_Tower_UVMapping_Techniques.zip

      Hope this helps!
      Cheers,
      Chris

  • http://www.manateestudios.com Aaron

    You sir, are wonderful. Thank you very much. I now see your repeated messages above about this. =\

    Read Aaron… it does amazing things…