Next-Gen Weapon Creation – Day 1: The High-Poly Model

on May 3rd 2011 with 123 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 9 of 12 in the Best of 3D Studio Max – Part 1 Session
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This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Next-Gen Weapon Creation

Twice a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of Cgtuts+. Today we have a great 4 day 3D Studio Max tutorial by Ben Bolton, focusing on creating a next-gen weapon. This tutorial was originally published back in August of 2009, and proved to be very popular with our Max users. So let’s revisit it!

Creating weaponry effectively in a next-gen workflow requires detailed knowledge of a variety of very specific skills and tools. In this, the first tutorial in the next-gen knife creation series, you will learn to build a high-poly knife model using 3ds Max.

Efficiency is stressed as we discuss time-saving ways to employ supporting edges and floating geometry, and basic concepts such as symmetric modeling are reinforced. The final result will be a robust high-poly model, suitable for baking out normal and occlusion maps, that will later be applied to the in-game model.

Please note that, although we will be using 3ds Max to create the high-poly model, the theories and techniques discussed can be applied to any 3d application that supports subdivision modeling.

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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.

Ben Bolton is a freelance game artist and student from New Hampshire. He has four years experience with weapon and environment modeling, and has contributed to several Source engine mods. He is currently attending Champlain College in the Game Art and Animation program. You can view his portfolio website at: www.benbolton.com.  

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  • Luong Tran

    Thanks, this is the first time I see this tutor, so proffesional. Hope future you can share more in future.

    thanks

  • fudgeomancer

    Thanks, but a quick question at the start of the tutorial your pulling new edges out of the plane, is that an extract short cut?

    • Will

      select the edge you want to “extract”… hold shift and drag it

  • Dylan

    Hey, I’m also a student in Vermont.
    I hope to attend Champlain as well for Game design, and I can speak for most of the people in my animation program in essex that this is an incredibly helpful tutorial.

    Thanks much.

    • Cube01

      Superb, very professional.
      For your next tutorials please do NOT go over basics, there are already planty of newcomers tutorials over the internet…

  • varun

    hey Thanx thanx thanx a lot Ben!”

    i don’t have internet @ home, i accidentally came across here,
    also a very low speed internet here,it’d be more better, if we’d get the same for download. :(

  • mohammed sariful islam

    hi i am mohammed sariful islam
    thanks for your nice teaching material. it’s helps me very much to learn 3d max modeling. and i thinks everybody like this teaching very much.

  • waseem

    thanks but there is proplem with vedio

    stop in second 24 ????

  • Siddharth

    plz share the Project files.

  • DePAK

    It would be awsome if you could tell us the mean some of the more important shortcuts like the one that makes a new plane right on the begining

    • Cara

      He clicked the plane button. I would recommend you look up a hotkey cheat sheet, a lot of these tools dont have default hotkeys either(atleast not good ones)

      If you are someone that likes hotkeys I recommend you set up your own. Personally I work in several different 3d apps in one day. Viewport navigation gets confusing enough(between Max, Maya, and ZBrush) so I end up setting similar hotkeys across apps(like how ‘w’ is always the move), helps when trying to remember. you can save your hotkey config files too.

      • Nicholas Fernyhough

        I totally agree with your comment… Iv been thinking of doing the same, because I learnt Maya, and I love the UI then I turn to 3ds Max, and the rotation buttons are different, nor do I know any of the hotkeys, and its slightly annoying learning how to use 2 sets of hotkeys for seperate programs

  • http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3ds-max/next-gen-weapon-creation-day-1-the-high-poly-model/ akpak

    can you give the image plz

  • Cara

    I like how he actually scaled in the edges to create the handle and tweak them all to the right distance…That’s what cap and inset are for, for sure when you cap it in the end anyway.

    The floating detail trick I did not know. Very nice tip for normal mapping and saving a ton of time.

  • Spencer

    Amazing! You are very clean in your modeling – no bools or any silly things like that. I can tell you are very professional. :)

    -Spencer

  • jonno

    Great film man!
    Only one question :S
    Can u give us the image?
    and the way how to put the image in the screen?
    Thx!!

  • VitalOverdose

    Great tutorial , this explains some very important concepts. Many thanks

  • Joe

    Hey guys i also wanted the image of the knife he uses but i found a quick way to get a alright copy of it, play the video in full screen and at 11 seconds take a screenshot, paste into paint, edit out the unwanted bits, then that seemed to work fine for me, hope that helps.

  • Joe

    Opps forgot to say a really big thanks to the tutor, this tutorial is a massive help as i’m still a beginner at this.

  • joe

    Don’t know if my last comment came through but i just wanted to add a big thanks to the tutor for posting, it has been a massive help, if the other post came through ignore this one :)

  • Christian

    Wow, thank you so much for this set of tutorials! I think I speak for a lot of beginners when I say this helps tremendously! Just one thing, would you be able to maybe go over the hotkeys and shortcuts you used throughout the video? They cut down a lot of time and it would be very helpful to know a few :D. Oh yea, quick side note: When you were speaking about floating geometry, I was basically awe struck, I’ve never seen anyone anywhere do anything like it! Very clean, professional, and straight to the point, keep them coming and keep up the good work!!!

  • http://www.theresidentarchitect.com/architects_blog/ adjee

    Hey Ben,

    Very nice model. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge. It’s very useful with a project that I’m doing now.

  • G Salvado

    Gosh, this is such a mind-opening tutorial. It really helped me to work easier and faster. Thank you so much for this enlightment.

  • Jn26

    When you made the knife handle, you use place and try to make it out with careful looking 2 separately viewport + shift holding all the time. I prefer use line and draw the same shape in left viewport, then extrude. Then other continue your tutorial. It’s way easier to beginner to follow and faster to do (just draw a line, don’t have hold shift and drag-drop a lotta time).

    • Jn26

      *use Plane* (mistyped) – not “use place”. Anyway, very nice tut.

  • Pablo

    I have a problem / when attach grip don’t project this mesh >> min 7:55 of your video.
    thanks.

  • CreativDesign

    I don’t understand how you get the floating geometry to become “baked” into your mesh. Is there some hot-key?

  • Gorkem

    I didnt understand what did u do at 7:55 min. Help please

  • http://www.district37.nl/phpBB3 Tim de W

    I have learned so much in this tutorial :D omg.

    Truly thankfull.. i really like your style of modeling.. it’s fast and easy.. when you know what you are doing ofcourse, good job

  • Jack

    How do you first get the image in the viewport I’ve tried setting it as a background but it then ruins the aspect ratio. In the videdo it seems as if it’s an object how would you accomplish this.

  • Umar Abid

    where can I get the ref for this why did not provide a ref for this how are we to follow along with out the ref?

  • Jet v4.3.5

    I just wanted to say that this tutorial is pretty much spot on and it helped me a lot. Additionally, I’m a Blender modeler, and I was able to replicate the steps in this part of the series to such a degree that it now looks nearly identical to your build (with hardly any variations from what you did in Max). I’d seen this before I’d started modeling and found out a thing or two about Blender, such as it’s ability to show floating geometry over surfaces in the viewports while I’m working. Great tutorial and I’ve learned quite a lot from it. Looking forward to other tutorials such as this one.

  • negi

    Nice tut ! Thanks a lot for the sharing of your techs . It really does freshed some of the ways that I was used to . Espicially digging holes with out using boolean !

  • Macgyver

    Hey! Love the tutorial! I am learning alot of new things! but, have you considered a blender port? That is what I am using, and I can follow most of it, but some stuff I can’t (“attach” floating geometry, some other things having to do with “inset”, and the loop cuts work differently) and other small stuff. Great tutorial, and keep it up!

  • http://www.gustavohiraoka.daportfolio.com Gustavo

    Very nice tutorial!!
    Also a great site for 3DS is: http://www.tresd1.com.br (in portuguese).

  • Pedram

    Hi,
    thx for the Tutorial. its great. i have a question. i keep getting this error every time i open up my project ” one or more objects are currently Isolated” how do i find these isolated objects.
    thx

  • Pascal

    How did he connect the planes at 1:14?
    Please help
    thx

  • Pedram

    hi,
    where can i get the reference picture used in the modeling ?

  • Tapsa

    Huge thanks for a great tutorial. The speed and the amount of explanation about what you’re doing are perfect. If I could see exactly what you’re doing, I would most likely replicate it to a t. And that’s not necessarily the best thing to do when learning. With your tutorial I can loosen up a bit and do things in ways I’m used to, using the tutorial as a guideline instead of a bible.

    Thanks again and I hope you will have time to put out more of these in the (near) future.

  • VAZ3R

    Hey there, I’m a begginer. But I know some stuff. At one point you select the edge of the plane you started with and then drag on from there. Is that extruding or something else?

  • Frostraver

    Hi!
    I really like this tutorial but when I want to create this floating geometry it keeps ‘floating’ above my other object. In the video this doesn’t happen. What am I doing wrong?

  • KAMAL JEET

    good morning sir

    very nice things you havr told us i am sorry for my poor english.
    i have a quetion for u. when you have a reses in knife blead
    u have attched that elemaent with blead and it becoms a reses in blead how u have done that
    please tell me i am new in this thing and please tell me your shoycuts things

    thanx

  • erik

    Hi, I am from Indonesia.

    When i saw this site and watched one of the tutorial, i know i come to the right place. Honestly, I don’t have any place i met before from other site like this. It’s managed so pretty.

    I am impressed for all your professional tutorials and i want to say thanks, thanks, and thousand of thanks for all you’ve done.

  • Fayez

    Thanks , but it’s too hard for new 3d max 2012 :s

  • Henry long

    Hey everyone Ben Boltens floating object thing doesnt work if your creating film props because in game if the floating object is carried its too hard to notice that it is floating slightly above the blade.. What I did was create the blade and floating object, cut out polygons on the blade and then bridge the edges across and applying a turbosmooth

    Glad you all know

  • Bojan

    Where can i find the reference photo from the knife?

  • http://none.com PedroA.

    at 7:55 minut, you usea boolean????? attach??? i dont understand this step…help plz

  • http://www.duegirenderstudio.com/ Giovanni Gianello

    Lovely tut. Thanks a lot. I’d like to show my knife in my website, reporting your name, website, and anything else. May I?
    https://picasaweb.google.com/117617948144275244906/25Luglio2012

  • CaptainCrazy

    Well since he didn’t provide a reference picture, which was kinda inconsiderate to be honest, i’ll provide one myself! Spent about an hour trying to find the make of this knife, i think it’s a Browning…

    Anyhoo here’s a reference picture, i know it’s a bit blurry but it’s still good enough to work with as i worked with it myself…

    http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s136/TacticalSiege/KNIFE.jpg

    Hope this helps =-)

  • leo_foty

    id wouldnt go as far as calling my self an intermediate user, but the tutorial is well done (appart from the missing reference picture), as long as you have basic understanding of maxs controls, the basic shortcuts, and basic polygonal modeling, anyone can follow it.

  • kypsy k

    where is d reference i mean blue print

  • http://twitter.com/shailen95717416 shailendra kumar

    awsome modeling How do you first get the image in the viewport I’ve tried setting it as a background but it then ruins the aspect ratio. In the videdo it seems as if it’s an object how would you accomplish this.

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