Model a High Poly Airframe Missile Launcher in 3ds Max – Day 2
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 2 in a series – Go to Day 1, or Day 3.
Final Effect Preview
Video 1
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Video 2
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Video 3
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Video 4
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This tutorial is Day 2 in a series – Go to Day 1, or Day 3.
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By Ben Tate
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great… thank’s Ben.
Great, Thanks alot !
really great ben, but why always change the color into black? and afterwards putting the grey material on it?
keep on the good spirit
To get black wireframe color when object is not selected. It’s personal preference, use whatever color you like.
Stacky
Right you are Stacky!…It’s just a habit I got into a long time ago. I find it’s easier on the eyes then having a bunch of rainbow colors in the viewports. Plus by applying a shader and changing the mesh color right after I model a piece, it lets me also know what parts I’ve finished off
…I also find the contrast between the black wire and a light grey shader on non-selected objects shows up best in the compressed video for these tutorials… You’ll also notice I usually use a blue color while modeling a piece, this is for the exact same reason. (white edges are easy to see against a darker color like blue) But as Stacky said, feel free to use whatever colors you like or skip that step and leave everything at the defaults if you prefer 
Dear Mr.Ben
i was waiting this part
Thaaaaaaaaank u sooo much ..
i visited ur website .. Really amazing work .. i have a goal which is to be a great 3d modeler
and i see that ur website and tutorials so inspirational
Please make alot of tutorials .. i like ur way and u r really an amazing teacher
Regards,
Moataz
Hey Moataz, Thanks a lot! If people keep watching them, I’ll keep making them
Thank u so much , i hope that
.. really appreciated 
Awesome work Ben.
How many poly’s this model has ???
Great model.
This model is pretty high poly, 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 
Cheers!
Loved this tutorial. Very detailed and i`ve learned a few things. I`ve made a simplified version with textures. Can`t wait to see the textured version from you..here is my version of it.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4545/rlfinal.jpg
WOW!! you are the best!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi Guys,
Thanks so much for such a great site. I’m really learning a lot. As a new Max user, I having a noob problem with the twist modifier. I’d applying the modifier as shown in video 4 to twist the cable for the support of the base. When I twist it the 180 deg as Ben is doing, my object starts to twist fine then it “pinches” in the center of the wire so it not a nice slow twist as it should be. I’m sure I just have something clicked that I should not have but I can’t seem to figure it out. Besides, that, everything is going great!
Thanks!
I figured it out. Looks like I missed an edge when I was making the connections down the wire.
I just started my 3D modeling class a month ago and thanks, mainly, to your video tutorials I’m ahead of my entire class by far. I’ve aced every quiz and finish my labs with hours to spare.
You have some great tutorials Ben. Easy enough for beginners and precise enough for professionals. Keep up the great work and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with the rest of us!
That’s awesome!! Thanks a lot Laura
Great tutorial. Not only is this a model of something I can use in the future I’ve learned so much just from watching your tutorials. I’m a complete noob coming into this but after this series I don’t feel like a noob anymore. I’m going to check out your website as soon as I post this comment. One question and I think I already know the answer, but I downloaded all the videos and I think I watched them all but I can’t seem to find the video where you add the details to the bottom part of the main launcher, a few hatches and bolts and such. Same goes for the handles on the legs, but I’m guess just because of time and after all that we should probably be able to figure them out ourselves. But if not let me know what video it’s in but either way AMAZING STUFF
Actually, it’s because this is only Day 2 of a 3 Day tutorial. Part three will be coming later in the week:)
AMAZING! So did you not have time to show the details under the main barrel and on the legs? Either way that tutorial was so helpful. I went from complete noob to novice in 2 days.
Thanks Justin! Glad to hear that you’re finding the tutorial helpful
and yes, everything you see in the above render is shown in the tutorial. Most of the small parts under the barrel and on the legs were the last parts I modeled. So they’ll be shown in Day 3, and as Kaleb mentioned, it should be online very soon 
Thanks again, cheers!
Oh awesome. Thanks for the response. Sorry about the double post, after an hour I didn’t see the first one and thought there was an error. But I can’t wait for Day 3! I checked out your website and was amazed! Those links were so helpful, I know I’ll be visiting some of those sites later in the week or so. Ben Tate, you’re a master.
Hi I wanna make tutorial, but what do you think about tutorial without sound?
my english is bad:) so I just shoot video how I am modeling something
Voice narration is a requisite for video tutorials at CGTuts+, but you could always do this type of tutorial and post it on your own website, or another video host service like Youtube, or Vimeo.
great… thank’s Ben
Hola amigo exselente trabajo e logrado mejorar mi estilo de usar 3DS max y es mas e podido avansar con todo lo q ofreses tan gentilmente a esta comunidad habida de segir aprendiendo de la manera q UDS lo hacen la verdad mis felisitaciones por todo lo q aporta amigo me gustaria q algun momento nos regale un video o varios videos de como usar el motor de render Vray para conclui,bien amigo sige imprecionando
Thanks for the great tutorial..i just started learning about 3D modeling and your tutorials are really helpful..
just a reminder to anyone following the tutorials. remember to save your work regular. brilliant tutorial.
those wires are really high polygon. i had to delete them, i saved one though. i am going to make a proxy model using torus and ten normal map the detail on to it.
Hi Ben,
Nice modeling.. Back in 1989 I was stationed on the USS David R Ray DD971 Destroyer, we were the the Test platform for your RAM “rolling airframe missle”. Somewhere I have a cool picture I took of a missle launch about 10 feet along its launch.. I will have to dig it up.
-Dave Hare