Print this page

3D Studio Max

3D Studio Max (3dsmax) is a 3D modeling, animation, and rendering tool.
It is owned by Autodesk, an United States (San Rafael, California) based company.

More information about 3D Studio Max can be found at: http://www.autodesk.com/3dsmax/
Note: A free 30 days trial version can be downloaded from the Autodesk site.

Some 3D Studio Max forums:

Quick guides

Create a bowl (using boolean operation).

Information
This guide is based on 3D Studio Max 7.

Procedure

Draw a sphere.
- Select in the Create panel: Geometry button.
- Press button: Sphere
- In the Keyboard Entry rollout, enter:
  
  Radius=30
- Press Create button
Remove the top part of the sphere.
- In the top viewport, draw a Box which completely hides the top part of the sphere. In the perspective view it should look like this:
- Select in the Create panel: Geometry button.
- Open the pull down menu and change "Standard Primitives" into "Compound Objects".
- Press button: Boolean
- With boolean operations you can do several actions, here an explanation:
  - Union: When this operation is selected the box and sphere are merged into one object.
  - Intersection: When this operation is selected ONLY the overlapping part remains. In our example the top part of the sphere will remain.
  - Subtraction: The FIRST operand object will be displayed minus its overlapping part
  Before you continue make sure, operand A is assigned to the Box.
- Select operation: Subtraction (B-A)
- Press button: Pick Operand B
- Select the Sphere in the perspective view.
  Note: Operand B is assigned to the Sphere.
- The result of the boolean operation is showing only lower part of the Sphere.
The next step is to hollow out the half sphere.
- In the top viewport, right click on the half sphere to display a quad menu.
- Select menu: Convert To: | Convert to Editable Mesh
- Again, right click on the half sphere to display a quad menu.
- Select Polygon.
- The top surface of the half sphere changes color.
- Select the Left viewport and maximize its view by clicking on the "Maximize Viewport Toggle" and "Zoom Extents" in the viewport navigation controls at the lower-right corner of the screen.
- Open the Edit Geometry rollout.
- By using the spinners next to Extrude and Bevel buttons the half sphere can be "hollowed" out.
The last step is to make the bowl smooth.
- Select the bowl in the perspective view.
- Select menu: Modifiers | Subdivision Surfaces | MeshSmooth
- Press F10 to render.