I felt like making this thread since we all have questions, or at least most of us, on how do one thing or the other in 3D Max. So for the first question: I would liked to know how add thickness to an object. Ex. say I wanted to make a trash can, just a cylinder that gets fatter towards the top the one you find in your bathroom or bedroom. Anyways I need to make the trashcan look like it thick and not just a round piece of paper. If you can picture, I was if you can help me or aim me and to get better description on what I want to do.
do you want to make it thick using materials or just modelling? For modelling, you can use the “Tube” standard primitive and then apply a taper modifier to it.
I would have no clue how to do with materails, but I will try that. Only problem now is taht my dad’s computer is used as the server for 3ds max license so i cant access it till tom.
or you could just make the trash can like you would normally, and when you want to make it have thickness, apply the shell modifier to it. this also works onplanes for making sheets of glass, plywood, anything like that instead of using boxes.
You can just make a cylinder shaped object and extrude the top face down into it shrinking or expanding the vertices to make it smaller at the bottom
Ok, here is a problem i have already published…
I wanna export a robot that was built in pro desktop and import it with 3dsmax 8
When I import a .STL file it shows me a message:
“bla bla bla design1.stl is not a valid *.STL file”
This file was exported from autodesk pro desktop 8.0 in this way:
File --> export --> browse --> choosing the file --> save --> ok.
if you can help, pleaseeeee…
Ok, now I tried a diffrent file type: *.IGS
I exported it from pro desktop 8.0 in the same way and imported it in 3ds max.
A simple object like a square was imported perfectly to 3dsmax 8, but when I tried importing a complicated structure like a base of a robot (which was built from several other designs which were connected to one design) it didn’t import nothing.
please, help.
Thanks a head, animation team, 1578.
You mean edit poly the cylinder and then vertex extrude or polygon extrude? I have already tried polygon extrufe and it doesnt work right. Extruding the vertexes would work if there was an easy way to have the connect back to the original cylinder, anyway to do that?
I was talking about the extrude face feature.
3dsmax should have an option that allows you to select a face and then extrude it.
It will make another face with the same dimensions and connect the vertices of the 2 face with other faces.
Well, it already has,
Build a box, apply edith mesh to it, press 4 then find the extrude button, right above the the bevel button…
tried it doesnt work there is a gap in between the extruded faces. Works for square surface but not round ones.
ok, i was wondering if i can put an animated character into a real life scene for our animation? is that possible? or does it have to be just animation and no rea life video?
yes. it’s called video compositing. i’m not entirely sure how to do it, but you could prolly find a simple tutorial in max or online.
Are you allowed to? Certainly!
Is it possible? Of course! 
A simple method is to go to the Rendering menu and choose “Environment”.
Set the environment map to open either a video file (AVI or MPeg) or a sequence of numbered images like JPGs or TGAs.
Now when you render the scene, the objects in the scene will appear in the foreground and the video you imported will be behind the objects.
If you need to do more complex things than that, then I would suggest using a program like Adobe Premiere or Adobe After Effects to combine your animated output from 3ds max and your video files.
yes, i already know how to do it. I was just wondering if it was aloud to be done. Thanks for the tip anyhow, even for other members.
you could try to export as an autoCAD file (or something else) and then from AutoCAD export as a 3ds file. Tell me if it works out.
I’ve found that AutoCAD’s .3ds export doesn’t work that well (Curves get pretty screwy), but that exporting as a .igs from AutoCAD and then importing THAT works quite nicely…odd but true
Well i finally got around to working on the trashcan again and when I made it using a tube, I can’t figure out how to close the hole on the bottom of the tube any suggestions?
the easiest way to make a trashcan is to use a cylinder, delete the top, and adda shell modifier. shell just makes your 2-d objects have thickness.
if you have to do it with a tube, selcet the vetices on the inside edge of the end of your tube, like where the bottom will be, and scale them down until they are close enogh to weld into one vetex. that will give you issues, though. for the easiest solution, you should just go ahead and plug the bottom of the tube up with a cylinder.
Actually, the best way to plug the bottom of the tube would be to make a vertical segment in the tube, then convert to an editable poly. Using the vertex select tool, drag the vertex’s for the middle segment down to just above the bottom (the height should be equal to the thicknes of the tube). Then delete the bottom inside poly’s. And then cap the holes.
I did the shell modifier one and it worked perfectly and easily. A little tinkering with mesh smooth and it looks great.