3ds Max Help!

[SamC]

Hi i'm a rookie to my FRC team 330! i think this is the first year we even tried to make an animation for the competition but we obviastly didn't get one done in time or at all!....&( i was wondering if anyone knows of sites that have 'pre-made' sculptures and other pieces of information about 3ds Max v.8... Also does anyone here have any tips or secrets to using 3ds Max v. 8?

TIA,
Sam

[BuddyB309]

First off, I recommend that you stay away form pre-made models. I dont hate anything more than when going up to animators during the competition to ask about how they made a particular model and their reply is "Uh... I got it from the internet. I didn't make any of the models in my video."

All right. Calm down and relax, You have a whole year to learn this program. I taught 3ds max to myself with no help from other people. You can do the same but you have to be patient it takes time. I recommend googleing "3ds max tutorials" thats how I learned some techniques. You can always email me if you have a specific problem that you can't figure out. And remember USERS REFERENCE GUIDE IS YOUR FRIEND, Use it often.

My advice pick an object in your room and create it on 3ds max. Don't pick and easy object and don't quit. By the time you finished modeling and texturing it, make it dance. If you succeed you are now past the basics and are well on your way.

Or you can have a older team member who knows the program to help you out. (one thing i wish I had )

[EricH]

Originally Posted by BuddyB309

Or you can have a older team member who knows the program to help you out. (one thing i wish I had )

I'd help, but I don't know much of anything in 3DSmax. Also, we don't have any older team members who know the program well enough to be much help. Tutorials can be found with the software (I think).

[SamC]

Thanks for the help. I agree with you about the internet modeling aswell its kinda like cheating when the team that wins the competition didn't model any of it... Though i must say the animations i saw at the Pheonix and LA regionals were remarkable even though some did have pre-made models... Thats one thing i'm gonna have to get good at...Modeling!

[Nuttyman54]

3dcafe.com is a great place to look, as is 3dkingdom.org. Check local libraries for books on 3ds max (i've found great tips and tricks in books for Max 3 and 4, so don't limit yourself to Max 8)

[SamC]

Yes well i figured if i learned Max 8 i would be able to use that in any version... but it would be good to read up on all of them!

[Nuttyman54]

Originally Posted by SamS0Fa33O

Yes well i figured if i learned Max 8 i would be able to use that in any version... but it would be good to read up on all of them!

actually, my point was that even if you can't find Max 8 books or tutorials, they'll still probably be useful. I found 3 books at my local library, and used bookstores often have stuff

[Nimmy]

we learned 3ds max off of mostly the tutorials in the program itself, it teaches basic modeling ideas and gets your hands "wet" with it just enough
for special effects (such as glow) we found a tutorials on the web

it's a really scary program, I know, but once you put in some time (some? haha), and effort im sure you'll have no problems

and if there is something specific just ask here or on the web (plenty of websites out there, try googling 3ds max tutorials)

about getting models off the internet, we didn't and I think it's cheating
but in any case, most of the good models are for cash, and the prices can get pretty expensive on some of them (ive seen plenty of models over 1,000 $)

[SamC]

Thanks everyone! This is an even bigger responce than what i expected....!

[Nimmy]

oh and about special tips, this is one thing I learned which is simply an annoyance that can be fixed, im sure you wanna make an elaborate model that will look really good and all, and I'm sure if you try hard you will do it
but what I learned is that most parts of a model can be done in several ways
some of which are the "right" ways and some aren't so "right"
take note to the amount of faces, in your models, we ended up with half a million faces for a small model because we used too many vertex for it's teeth, so try to save up where you can, it will end up cutting you a lot of time on working, our machine almost froze because we used too much faces, gotten to a point we had to go back to the original file of that model, and do it over again (looked the same eventually, but with 90,000 faces instead of 500,000)

[[527]phil]

Personally I think that any teams who use premade models should be disqualified, because it's cheating. But anyway, I learned how to use the program by reading the tutorials already included in the program. it has an extensive library of most topics you might need. 3d cafe also has alot. I only used the program for about 3 days before I started on my teams animation and the only thing I had a problem with was creating bones, I'm still a little confused about it . But the GUI is very intuitive and basic modeling is just realizing what basic primitive shapes are used to create a complex object.