Foundation 3ds Max 8Architectural Visualization

Brian L. Smith

5572FM.qxd 3/25/06 3:40 PM Page i

Lead EditorChris Mills

Technical ReviewerMark Gerhard

Contributing AuthorThomas Livings

Editorial BoardSteve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell,

Jason Gilmore, Jonathan Gennick, Jonathan Hassell, James Huddleston, Chris Mills, Matthew Moodie,

Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser, Keir Thomas, Matt Wade

Project Manager | Production DirectorGrace Wong

Copy Edit ManagerNicole LeClerc

Copy EditorsDamon Larson, Heather Lang

Assistant Production DirectorKari Brooks-Copony

Production EditorLaura Cheu

CompositorDina Quan

ArtistKinetic Publishing Services, LLC

ProofreaderLori Bring

IndexerJohn Collin

Cover Image DesignerCorné van Dooren

Original 3D Cover ArtistOleg Melnyk

Interior and Cover DesignerKurt Krames

Manufacturing DirectorTom Debolski

Foundation 3ds Max 8Architectural Visualization

Copyright © 2006 by Brian L. Smith

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the

prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.

ISBN-13: 978-1-59059-557-2

ISBN-10: 1-59059-557-2

Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name,we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of

infringement of the trademark.

Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or visit www.springeronline.com.

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The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in thepreparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any

loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work.

The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the Downloads section.

Credits

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This book is dedicated to my lovely wife, Shari, and our two great kids, Laken and Kegan. Without their support,

this book would simply not have been possible.

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About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

About the Technical Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii

About the Cover Image Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

PART 1 GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Quick Start 1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Chapter 1 Navigating the 3ds Max Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 2 Working with Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

PART 2 MODELING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 3 Modeling Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Chapter 4 The Critical Compound Objects Types (Loft, Boolean, Terrain, and Scatter) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Chapter 5 The Critical Modeling Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

PART 3 MATERIALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Chapter 6 Material Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Chapter 7 The Critical Map Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Chapter 8 The Critical Map Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Chapter 9 UVW Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

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PART 4 LIGHTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Quick Start 4 Getting Started with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Chapter 10 Basic Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Chapter 11 Photometric Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Chapter 12 Global Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

PART 5 CAMERAS AND ANIMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation . . . . . 323

Chapter 13 Camera Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Chapter 14 Animation Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Chapter 15 Animation Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

PART 6 RENDERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Quick Start 6 Getting Started with Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Chapter 16 Rendering Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Chapter 17 Scene Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Chapter 18 Effect Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

APPENDIXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Appendix A Marketing Your Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Appendix B Top 20 Production Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

Appendix C Customizing 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

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About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii

About the Technical Reviewer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii

About the Cover Image Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xx

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi

PART 1 GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Quick Start 1 Getting Started . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Chapter 1 Navigating the 3ds Max Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

The interface elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Toolbars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17The Command panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18The Lower Interface bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Quad menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Floaters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Dialog boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Using the Command panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19The Create panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20The Modify panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20The Hierarchy panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21The Motion panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23The Display panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23The Utilities panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Using the viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25Perspective and axonometric views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Learning the viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Zooming, panning, and rotating in a viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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Viewport refreshing and disabling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Rendering levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Enabling Fast View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32The viewport layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Undoing and saving view changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Chapter 2 Working with Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Selecting objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37The Select icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37The Select Objects dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38Select by region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Selection filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Named selection sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Selection lock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Other ways to select objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46Isolate selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Displaying objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47The Display floater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50Using the Layer Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Transforming objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Rotate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53The Transform Type-In dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Status bar type-in fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

PART 2 MODELING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Quick Start 2 Getting Started with Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Chapter 3 Modeling Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Setting up the work environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74Display drivers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76Configure paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Preference settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79Customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Working with shapes and splines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81Shapes and splines defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82Shape basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

The Rendering rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85The Interpolation rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Spline basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

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Working with meshes and polys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Creating mesh objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Editing mesh objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

The Selection rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92The Soft Selection rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95The Edit Geometry rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Important features available anywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Attach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99Explode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101Remove Isolated Vertices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102View Align and Grid Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Important features available only in sub-object modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Detach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104Weld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Chapter 4 The Critical Compound Objects Types (Loft, Boolean, Terrain, and Scatter) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Creating Lofts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108The Creation Method rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108The Surface Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110The Path Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112The Skin Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114The Deformations rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Creating Booleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116Union . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117Subtraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117Intersection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118Cut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118Suggestions for creating Booleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Creating terrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120Creating scatter objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Distribution object parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124The Transform rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Chapter 5 The Critical Modeling Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

The Extrude modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129The Smooth modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131The Noise modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132The Optimize modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133The TurboSmooth modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135The Displace modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136The Lathe modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138The STL Check modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140The Cap Holes modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

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PART 3 MATERIALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Quick Start 3 Getting Started with Materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Chapter 6 Material Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

The Material Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163Sample slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164Changing the sample slot background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164Changing the sample slot object type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Magnifying a sample slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Naming materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Creating new materials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Assigning materials to objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167Loading materials in the sample slots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169Removing materials and maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169Selecting objects by material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171Showing maps in a viewport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Material Editor icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172The Material/Map Browser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174Material libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175The Material/Map Navigator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Material Editor rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177The Shader Basic Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

The Wire option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178The 2-Sided option . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

The Blinn Basic Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180The Ambient, Diffuse, and Specular Color swatches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181The Specular Highlights section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181The Self-Illumination section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

The Extended Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183The Advanced Transparency section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184The Wire section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184

The SuperSampling rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184The Maps rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187The Dynamic Properties rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187The Mental Ray Connection rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Chapter 7 The Critical Map Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

The Maps rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190The Diffuse Color channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190The Opacity channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192The Bump channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195The Reflection channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197The Displacement channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200The Refraction channel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

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Chapter 8 The Critical Map Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

The Bitmap map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207The Coordinates rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Offset and tiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209Angle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210Blur and blur offset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

The Noise rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213The Time rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214The Output rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

The Gradient map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215The Gradient Ramp map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216The Mix map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218The Noise map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220The Smoke map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221The Waves map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222The Falloff map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Chapter 9 UVW Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Generating mapping coordinates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229The UVW Map modifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Working with the UVW gizmo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231Sizing and tiling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232Alignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232

Map channels and multi/sub-objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

PART 4 LIGHTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Quick Start 4 Getting Started with Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Chapter 10 Basic Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Standard lights vs. photometric lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264The standard light source types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Omni lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265Spotlights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265Direct lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Creating lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266Viewport navigation controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268Light placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

Align Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269Place Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

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Light parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270The General Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Shadow map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272Area shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Raytraced shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274Advanced raytraced shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

The Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276Intensity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277Decay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277Attenuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 277

The Advanced Effects rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279The Shadow Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Rollouts for specific shadow types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282The Shadow Map Params rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282The Area Shadows rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285The Ray Traced Shadow Params rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286The Adv. Ray Traced Params rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286The Optimizations rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286The Spotlight and Directional Parameters rollouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Chapter 11 Photometric Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Exposure control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291Types of exposure control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292Exposure control parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Photometric light types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293Point, linear, and area lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Intensity/Color/Attenuation rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294Preset Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

IES Sun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298IES Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299Daylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Standard lights vs. IES Sun and IES Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303Sunlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Chapter 12 Global Illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Principles of global illumination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308Shaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309Radiosity Processing Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310

Initial Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310Refine Iterations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312Light filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Radiosity Meshing Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315Considerations when using radiosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

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PART 5 CAMERAS AND ANIMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Quick Start 5 Getting Started with Cameras and Animation . . . . . 323

Chapter 13 Camera Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Camera types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330Creating cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331Viewport navigation controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332Camera placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Align Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333Place Highlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Basic camera parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334Lens length and field of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335Environment ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337Clipping planes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Chapter 14 Animation Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Basic animation interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342Time Configuration dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342Time slider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344Animation playback controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344

Keyframing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345Creating keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346Creating basic motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Chapter 15 Animation Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Motion panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 354Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Assign Controller rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355Assigning and changing controllers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356PRS Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358Position XYZ Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358Euler Parameters rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358Key Info (Basic) rollout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Trajectories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363Curve Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

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PART 6 RENDERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Quick Start 6 Getting Started with Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Chapter 16 Rendering Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

The Render Scene dialog box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388The Common tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Time Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390Output Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391Render Output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392

Email Notifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394The Renderer tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395Antialiasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395Global SuperSampling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396Object and Motion Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396Auto Reflect/Refract Maps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396Color Range Limiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396Memory management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396

Choosing file dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396Prints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397High-definition and standard DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398Internet images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398Internet video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Additional rendering tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399The Print Size Wizard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399The RAM Player . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400The Panorama Exporter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Video Post . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404Network rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Chapter 17 Scene Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415

Computer power vs. scene complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416Transferring files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Instance vs. copy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 418Refreshing and rendering viewports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 420

Assembly tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422Save Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423Merge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 424Import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425Export . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426Export Selected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426XRef Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

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XRef Scenes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428File Link Manager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428File Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428Summary Info . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429

Archive and Resource Collector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Chapter 18 Effect Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Atmospheric effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434The Fire effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435The Fog effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Standard fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439Environment ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440Layered fog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

The Volume Fog effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443The Volume Light effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Render effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448The Lens effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449The Depth of Field effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452The Motion Blur effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Multi-pass effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455The Multi-Pass Motion Blur effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455The Multi-Pass Depth of Field effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

APPENDIXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Appendix A Marketing Your Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463

Your clients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 463Developers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464Architects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Continuing education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465Individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465Contractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466Real estate agents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Your tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467Brochures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468Phone books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468DVDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469Phone calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469E-mails . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

CONTENTS

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Appendix B Top 20 Production Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

1. Build a network of subcontractors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4742. Inspect the architectural drawings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4753. Write a good script as soon as possible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4774. Question poor designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4785. Master the keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4786. Use additional input devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4797. Write a good contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4808. Break up projects into smaller jobs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4809. Use the Loft feature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48110. Save incrementally and save often . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48111. Use advanced raytraced shadows and know when to use advanced lighting . . . . 48212. Purchase the best available model and material libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48313. Create assembly lines for doors and windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48414. Use material libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48615. Use standard scene elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48716. Use the top third-party plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48717. Use the Scatter command and Spacing tool to create vegetation . . . . . . . . . . 48918. Use artificial shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49019. Participate in website forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49220. Attend trade shows, seminars, and classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Appendix C Customizing 3ds Max . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

The Customize menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497UI schemes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498Custom UI and Defaults Switcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498Customize User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503

Default keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503Additional keyboard shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511

CONTENTS

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Since 1997, Brian Smith has worked as a CAD manager and anima-tion specialist in architectural, engineering, and landscaping firms insouthwest Florida. He started his own company in 2001, specializingin the production of architectural animations and renderings in3ds Max. He is the cofounder of 3D Architectural Solutions inSarasota, Florida, and is currently an instructor at the AutodeskAuthorized Training Center, Planet Digital Education, in Orlando(www.planetdigital.com), where he teaches 3ds Max for the visual-ization industry. A portfolio of his work can be seen at www.3das.com.

Brian graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point with amajor in aerospace engineering. He served on active duty, and later

in the Florida Army National Guard, including two years as a battery commander, responsible for ashort range air defense battery of over 100 soldiers. Following 9/11, he served in Washington, D.C.as an air defense artillery fire control officer, working closely with the US Secret Service, the US Air Force, and the FAA to provide air defense coverage of our nation’s capital. In 2005, hedeployed numerous times with his unit to provide humanitarian relief to hurricane victims along theGulf Coast.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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xviii

Mark Gerhard is a creative professional with over 15 years experiencein the field of 3D modeling and animation. He was the first artist hiredby Autodesk to test the initial release of 3D Studio in 1990, and spentsix years as the lead writer for the tutorials that ship with the product.He has taught at Santa Rosa Junior College, Napa Valley College,Academy of Art University, Sonoma State University, Sonoma CountryDay School, and Petaluma High School; and has lead countless classesand demonstrations of this software throughout the world. He has alsobeen an author, illustrator, and technical editor for books on 3ds Maxfor Pearson Education, Wiley, Macmillan, and other publishers. Heholds a BA in Practice of Art from UC Berkeley.

ABOUT THE TECHNICAL REVIEWER

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Corné van Dooren designed the front cover image for this book.Having been given a brief by friends of ED to create a new design forthe Foundation series, he was inspired to create this new setup com-bining technology and organic forms.

With a colorful background as an avid cartoonist, Corné discoveredthe infinite world of multimedia at the age of 17—a journey of dis-covery that hasn’t stopped since. His mantra has always been “Theonly limit to multimedia is the imagination,” and this mantra keepshim moving forward constantly.

After enjoying success after success over the past years—workingfor many international clients, as well as being featured in multimedia magazines, testing software,and working on many other friends of ED books—Corné decided it was time to take another step inhis career by launching his own company, Project 79, in March 2005.

You can see more of his work and contact him through www.cornevandooren.com orwww.project79.com.

If you like his work, be sure to check out his chapter in New Masters of Photoshop: Volume 2 (friendsof ED, 2004).

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ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE DESIGNER

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xx

I would like to thank the entire team at friends of ED for making my writing sound far more intelli-gent than it originally started: Grace Wong, Nicole LeClerc, Damon Larson, Heather Lang, KariBrooks-Copony, and Laura Cheu.

A special thanks to Chris Mills for believing in my idea of a book dedicated to the architectural visu-alization industry, and for helping make that dream a reality.

Thanks to my mom for beating proper English into me from the time I could write. Before any ofthese chapters ever made it to the team at friends of ED, she got first crack at correcting mywriting—and she made plenty of markups.

Thanks to my long-time friend and business partner Brian Zajac, who keeps me steered in the rightdirection with all things graphical.

Thanks to my friends at Visarty and Catapult, whose 3D services helped my business stay in produc-tion during the crunch phase of this book. If you need some good subcontracting work done, theseare two of the best companies out there. Their work can be seen in the gallery of this book.

Last but not least, I would like to thank Randall Stevens (ArchVision/VisMasters) and Jeff Mottle(CGarchitect.com) for their support of this book and the donation of valuable content.

Brian L. Smith

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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I feel fortunate to be part of the 3D world at a time when it appears that the real world is com-pletely embracing our work. My long-time friend Brian Zajac started in the 3D business a long timeago, when a typical workstation cost $100,000, and a simple animation that today would take onlyminutes to render took weeks. He gave up 3D and turned his sights to a career in web design wherehe wouldn’t have to wait so long to see the fruits of his labor. Many architectural visualization com-panies struggled to survive these early days of 3D, when the software lacked the quality that manyclients demanded, and the cost of equipment was a great a burden to manage. But just like the con-version from hand-drawn architectural blueprints to computer-aided drafting in the 90s, 3D visual-izations have gained the necessary backing to make our work the standard—before long it will bethe norm. Now anyone with enough drive and desire can start a 3D visualization business from theirown home with just a single computer. With new developments in chip technology on the horizon,such as the much anticipated Cell chip, the near future promises even greater power for all of us tobuild better scenes and render them in a fraction of the time it takes today. Before you know it, wewill be able to render our scenes in real time!

The idea for writing this book started sometime in the first few days of teaching myself 3D StudioRelease 4 for DOS. I was amazed at all the books available for users in the entertainment industry,yet not one could be found for those of us in the visualization industry. I wasted countless hourslearning things I found out only later that I didn’t need to know, and I made up my mind that ifsomeone else didn’t have a visualization book on the market when I had learned the program, Iwould write one myself. And here it is. I hope you can benefit from what I believe to be the foun-dation for those of us using 3ds Max for architectural visualizations.

TutorialsThere are two types of tutorials in this book: the Quick Start tutorials that begin each major part ofthe book, and the tutorials within the chapters.

The intent of the Quick Start tutorials is to take you through the process of creating an animationfrom start to finish. Though the final product contains less detail and complexity than most visual-izations, the process is still the same, and many of the steps are identical. Whenever possible, theQuick Start tutorials were designed to provide visibility of as many features as possible in the short-est number of steps, rather than having you redo the same steps over and over for the sake ofbuilding up the scene’s content.

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INTRODUCTION

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The tutorials within the chapters are designed to maximize the clarity of selected featuresand the speed at which you can learn the material. Whenever possible, you’ll be asked toreset 3ds Max and create scene elements from scratch, rather than simply opening precon-structed scenes. By taking you through a tutorial that starts from scratch rather than a pre-constructed scene, you'll be apt to feel a greater sense of confidence that the steps in thetutorial work independently of any pre-arranged settings or elements. Also, I’ve kept the com-plexity of the tutorials to a minimum and incorporated mostly simple objects (such asprimitives) so that you can gain a greater sense of clarity of what exactly is going on. The endresult is a tutorial that maximizes the transfer of knowledge in a minimal amount of time.

Layout conventionsTo keep this book as clear and easy to follow as possible, the following text conventions areused throughout:

Important words or concepts are normally highlighted on the first appearance in bold type.

Menu commands are written in the form Menu ➤ Submenu ➤ Submenu.

Screen text is used to draw your attention to on-screen elements in the 3ds Max interface.

INTRODUCTION

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GETTING AROUND INSIDE 3DS MAX

Part 1

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3

Quick Start 1

GETTING STARTED

If you’ve ever been frustrated with computer books that require extensive readingbefore giving you the knowledge to get your feet wet, fear not—the Quick Starttutorials in this book will allow you to jump right in and get soaked with knowledgerelevant to architectural visualizations. There are six major parts to this book, each ofwhich begins with a Quick Start tutorial designed to familiarize you with the materialpresented in subsequent chapters. Each tutorial is a continuation of the previoustutorial, and walks you through the creation of a virtual 3ds Max welcome center.The final product of the combined tutorials will be a ten-second animation of thewelcome center.

This first tutorial, “Getting Started,” is intended to be simple enough to be completedby someone with absolutely no experience with 3ds Max 8. It is also sophisticatedenough to allow you to quickly set up 3ds Max and your new scene, similar to theway veteran users in the architectural visualization industry would. The remainingtutorials build upon the material in the preceding chapters and allow you to jumpright into the next major part of the book, although it is possible to complete all sixQuick Starts before reading any chapters.

Approximate Completion Time: 30 minutes

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Following is a list of the Quick Start tutorials that begin the six major parts of this book:

Quick Start 1: Getting Started

Quick Start 2: Getting Started with Modeling

Quick Start 3: Getting Started with Materials

Quick Start 4: Getting Started with Lighting

Quick Start 5: Getting Started with Cameras and Animation

Quick Start 6: Getting Started with Rendering

Images are provided for nearly every step of the tutorials, and annotations are included showingexactly where you need to click on the screen. Whenever a left-click is called for, the circle annotationis provided; right-clicks are designated with a diamond-shaped annotation.

Before starting the tutorials, you will have to download the Quick Start support files from the friendsof ED website, www.friendsofed.com. These files include a 3ds Max scene with a few preconstructedelements and images used in the materials that are applied to the objects in your scene. There are alsofiles for each subsequent Quick Start tutorial that you can use in lieu of the files that you save alongthe way. The ultimate goal of these tutorials is to walk you through some of the most important fea-tures, and eliminate, as much as possible, the need to use the same commands over and over. So let’sget started!

The very first thing you need to do is download some support files needed for this tutorial and savethem to a unique folder within the 3dsMax8 directory.

1. Create a folder named Friends_of_Ed in each of the two directories, 3dsMax8\scenes and3dsMax8\images, as shown in the images below.

2. Go to www.friendsofed.com.

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3. At the top of the website, click books.

4. In the list that appears, click the link Downloads to the right of Foundation 3ds Max 8Architectural Visualization.

5. Click the file link named Scene files and save to your computer. Click the file named Imagefiles and save to your computer.

6. Unzip Scene files into the 3dsMax8\scenes folder you created and then unzip Image files intothe 3dsMax8\images folder you created.

7. Start 3ds Max 8.

The first thing you need to do within 3ds Max is tell the program where to find all the support imagesthat are going to be used in this tutorial, i.e., the image files you just downloaded.

8. Click the Customize menu and select Configure User Paths.

5

GETTING STARTED

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9. Click the Add button.

10. Go to the 3dsMax8 directory and highlight the Images folder.

11. Enable the Add Subpaths option.

12. Click the Use Path button twice. This tells 3ds Max to always look in the Images folder when it’slooking for support files referenced in a scene. Click OK to exit.

6

QUICK START 1

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Next, you need to set up 3ds Max to use architectural units.

13. Click the Customize menu and select Units Setup.

14. Select US Standard, Feet w/Decimal Inches.

15. Select Inches for Default Units, and click OK to exit.

7

GETTING STARTED

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Rather than starting a 3D scene completely from scratch, you’ll open a scene with some existinglinework to speed up and facilitate the creation process for this tutorial.

16. Press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+O and open the file named QuickStart01.max, located in the3dsMax8\scenes\Friends_of_Ed folder. 3ds Max opens a scene with four viewports.

You’re going to change the layout of the viewports so that there are two large viewports rather thanfour small ones. This will make seeing and working with the objects a little easier.

17. Right-click the word Camera, shown in the upper-left corner of the Camera viewport. Thisopens the Viewport Properties menu.

8

QUICK START 1

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18. Select Configure from the menu. This opens the Viewport Configuration dialog box.

19. Click the Layout tab.

20. Select the viewport layout that shows two rectangular-shaped viewports, one above the other,and click OK to complete the command. The viewport layout changes to two viewports.

9

GETTING STARTED

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The last configuration you need to make is to change some shortcut buttons that give you access topowerful features in 3ds Max called modifiers.

21. In the Command panel, on the right-hand side of the screen, click the Modify tab.

22. Click the Configure Modifier Sets icon. The Configure Modifier Sets menu opens.

At the top of the menu, a check must be displayed next to Show Buttons, but not next to Show AllSets in List (as shown in the following image).

23. If a check is not displayed to the left of the Show Buttons label, click the label—if a check isdisplayed, press the Esc key on the keyboard to close the menu.

24. Click the Configure Modifier Sets icon again.

25. If a check is displayed to the left of the Show All Sets in List label, click the label—if a check isnot displayed, press the Esc key on the keyboard to close the menu.

26. Click the Configure Modifier Sets icon one final time.

27. Select Configure Modifier Sets from the menu. This opens the Configure Modifier Setsdialog box.

10

QUICK START 1

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28. In the left-hand Modifiers window, scroll down in the list to the area labeled MAX STANDARD,and highlight the word Extrude. Click and drag the Extrude modifier from the left-handwindow into any of the eight available modifier shortcut slots on the right-hand side of thedialog box.

29. Repeat step 28 for the following modifiers, which you’ll use throughout the Quick Start tutori-als in this book. As shown in the preceding image, these are the Edit Mesh, Edit Spline, UVWMap, Lathe, Smooth, Optimize, and Turbo Smooth modifiers.

30. In the top-right corner of the dialog box, type My Buttons in the Sets drop-down field, andclick Save. Click OK to close dialog box. This saves your shortcut button layout. You can savemultiple layouts and select a layout from the drop-down list later.

Before ending this tutorial, let’s make one more change to the viewports.

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GETTING STARTED

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31. Activate the Front view by right-clicking anywhere in the viewport. If a menu appears at yourcursor’s location, then the viewport is already activated. If so, press the Esc key to close themenu.

32. Press C to change the Front view to a Camera view. You’ll use a preexisting locked camera inthe scene to prevent inadvertent view changes to the viewport you’ll be working in most often.Clicking and dragging in a viewport that’s not locked can easily cause the viewport’s perspec-tive to change.

33. When your view changed to a Camera view, it should have also changed to a shaded view, aviewport setting known as Smooth + Highlights. If it did not, press the keyboard shortcut F3 tochange the Camera view from wireframe to shaded (Smooth + Highlights). Now you can seesurfaces in your scene. Your viewports should look like the image that follows.

12

QUICK START 1

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34. Click the Zoom Extents All button in the bottom-right corner of 3ds Max. This maximizes allyour views, except Camera views. In this case, it only changed the Top view.

35. Click the File menu and select Save As. The Save File As dialog box opens to theAutodesk\3dsMax8\scenes folder.

36. Name your file MyQuickStart01.max for use in the next Quick Start tutorial.

This concludes Quick Start 1. In Quick Start 2, you’ll jump right into the creation of your virtualwelcome center!

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GETTING STARTED

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15

Chapter 1

The interface of any computer program is the means with which you command theprogram to perform a task. It stands to reason, therefore, that an interface should bedesigned in a way that allows the user to command the program as quickly and effi-ciently as possible. Did Autodesk succeed in creating that perfect interface? They dida great job; however, the default interface was created to benefit all 3ds Max users,not just those specializing in architectural visualizations. This chapter shows you howto best make use of the interface provided, and Appendix C demonstrates how topick up where Autodesk leaves off, by showing you how to customize the 3ds Maxinterface to your specific needs.

Why put customization in an appendix at the end of a book? Simple. Until you havea firm grasp of at least the fundamentals, you won’t know how to best customize theinterface, and you’ll probably end up changing it anyway. That being said, this chap-ter will focus on how to interact with the program as it is.

Autodesk did an outstanding job of making the 3ds Max interface user-friendly andefficient. As with many programs, there are numerous ways to tell the program to dothe same thing. The trick is knowing which way is best—and this 3ds Max userdefines best as the way that’s fastest. It’s a cliché, but time is money.

NAVIGATING THE 3DS MAX INTERFACE

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The interface elementsThere are eight main screen interfaces through which to communicate with 3ds Max and get yourwork done, as shown in Figure 1-1. They include the Menu bar, toolbar, Command panel, viewport,Lower Interface bar, quad menu, floater, and dialog box. But before you can even use them, you haveto work through at least one of two other interfaces: the keyboard and the mouse. Most users relyalmost completely on the mouse—at least at first—and although using the mouse is a must in manyways, you should never overlook the power and usefulness of the keyboard.

Figure 1-1. The eight main screen interfaces of 3ds Max

Most commands in 3ds Max can be executed with shortcut keystrokes. For example, to change theactive viewport from Top view to Left view, simply press L. Keyboard shortcuts make using the key-board a fast and efficient way of executing commands. If you find yourself using the screen interfacesto execute the same commands over and over again, it would be wise to invest a small amount of timelearning the keyboard shortcuts for those commands and try using them for a while to see how ben-eficial they can be. Refer to Appendix D to see a list of all of the keyboard shortcuts relevant to archi-tectural visualizations. If a shortcut doesn’t exist for a particular command, Appendix C will show youhow to create your own.

16

CHAPTER 1

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The mouse is also a critical interface through which you work. One feature on a mouse that’s anabsolute must, as any serious user would agree, is the scroll button (often in the form of a wheelbetween the left and right buttons). This additional feature allows you to pan and zoom, which areprobably the two most frequently used commands in 3ds Max. Without the scroll button, you have tointerrupt other commands to execute a zoom or pan.

A scroll button gives you two additional benefits. First, you can easily rotate your view by dragging themouse while holding the Alt key and the scroll button on your mouse. Second, if you press and holdboth Ctrl and Alt, you can zoom in and out of your scene by dragging the mouse up or down.

MenusAlthough most commands in 3ds Max can be executed through the use of menus, the time needed toexecute this way is much greater than with other interfaces. With the exception of a few tools notfound in any other interface, I don’t use the menus at all.

Notice the underlined letters in the default menus shown in Figure 1-2. You can use the keyboard toquickly open a menu by holding the Alt key and pressing the key of the letter that’s underlined. Youcan then execute a command by pressing the key for an underlined letter of a submenu command.Holding the cursor over a submenu command that has an arrow to the right of it opens another sub-menu for that command. I dislike menus so much because it takes several keystrokes or precise andslow movements of the mouse to get to the command you want. There are better ways. For this rea-son, I avoid using menus whenever possible and won’t spend time covering them here. Certain fea-tures that can only be accessed through the menus, however, will be discussed in the chapters thatcover those features.

Figure 1-2. The default 3ds Max menus

ToolbarsToolbars contain groups of icons that require only a single click of the mouse for command execution.However, with the exception of the Main toolbar (shown in Figure 1-3), I avoid using toolbars almostentirely because they simply require more time to use than keyboard shortcuts. Icons require movingthe mouse cursor and your eyes away from the object or Command panel feature that you’re workingwith, and making a precise selection over a small area of screen space. I prefer using keyboard short-cuts because I can keep my eyes on the object, and with one hand already resting on the keyboard, Ican execute the command in a fraction of the time—without the risk of selecting the wrong commandand having to spend time backing out of it when I do. Although the difference in time between thetwo interfaces may seem insignificant, when you consider that you may execute several thousandcommands in one day, it becomes very significant.

Figure 1-3. The Main toolbar

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