3Ds MAX 6.0 Term paper Virtual Reality sponsored by: Dr. Hatem Abdul-Kader. Prepared by: Mahmoud Sami Section 3 (010116) IT Department
3Ds MAX 6.0 Introduction What is the 3D graphics. Applications of 3D Graphics. What is 3Ds MAX.? System requirements for 3Ds max. Components of 3Ds MAX. Plugins.
3Ds MAX 6.0 Into 3Ds Max 6.0 3Ds Max user Interface Main Menu. Main Tool bar. Create Panel. Modify Panel. Material Editor. Track View.
3Ds MAX 6.0 Working with 3Ds Max. Objects and modeling. Predefined Models. User Designed Models. Modeling Techniques. Materials & Textures Materials Types. Compound Materials. Lights. Cameras. Animations Good Scene elements.
3Ds MAX 6.0 Introduction
Introduction What is the 3D graphics. Applications of 3D Graphics. What is 3Ds MAX.? System requirements for 3Ds max. Components of 3Ds MAX. Plugins.
What is the 3D Graphics. The 3D Graphics is one of the most important and sophisticated Computer graphics branches. It offers the user a 3Dimentional Virtual environment and figures can be interactive environment or just a watching movie or image.
Applications of 3D graphics. Entertainment and games. Cinema movies and Visual tricks. Education and Explanation Drawings and figures. Virtual reality application. Commercial announcements. Etc..
What is 3Ds MAX. 3Ds Max : a 3D graphics programs can be used for generating 3D Graphics images, videos, models, animations, AutoCAD objects,vrml, etc.. 3Ds Max developed and produced by Discreet graphics co. www.discreet.com specialized for the Computer graphics. Like 3D and 2D graphics, web 3D graphics ( not VRML ), video editing programs, etc.
System Requirements for 3Ds MAX. The Most important Computer components for 3Ds max are. 1. VGA Card (Graphics card). 2. Main Memory. 3. CPU Cash. 4. Monitor.
Requirements continue. VGA Card: for the rendering process to be fast and more efficient we need a good VGA card with big internal memory and good processor. Main Memory: Enables users to deal with big scenes, accurate detailed objects, and the sophisticated objects like hair, grass,trees,etc..
Requirements continue CPU cash : helps the VGA card in the rendering process it also helps in dealing with the program components and controls quickly and smoothly. Monitor: the size and colors of the monitor helps in the Modeling and rendering operations respectively.
Components of 3D Max. Main Menu : the most important component of the 3Ds Max every this that 3Ds Max can do can be done using the Main Menu using the main menu you can be in no need of all the other components except tools bar. Tools bar. Creation panel. Modify panel. Material Editor. Track view.
3Ds Max Components continue. Track View Graph editor. Schematic view Editor. All these components will be discussed in Details in the following slides. Note that: not all these components are developed by 3Ds max team but all of these components were produced by them and come with the program package by default with out any additional packages installations.
Plugins. The plugins are components just like the previous components but not produced by 3Ds Max team and not included in the default program package. So the user can get it as a separated packages and install it to the max folder. Some common plugins : 1. VRay : materials and rendering engine. 2. Final Render: Materials and rendering engine. 3. Brazil: Materials and Rendering engine.
Plugins continue. 4. Maxwell : Rendering engine. 5. CAT : Character Animation tool for characters animation. 6. After burn: for smoking, clouds, fires and other none rigid 3D objects. 7. glu3d : for creating liquids real flow animation and real physical liquid behaviors 8. Phoenix : for creating sophisticated objects like hair and grass. 9. SimCloth: for creating clothes and make a real physical animations and behaviors for it.
Into 3Ds Max 6.0 3Ds Max user Interface
Main Menu. File: Contains all the file actions that can be done using 3Ds max like. 1. new, open, open recent,save, save as, save copy as, archive ( for making an archive file of the current scene.) 2. Rest: resets the current scene by removing all the objects in the scene and returning the scene to the default state.
File Menu continue. 3. Merge, Merge animation : to merge and object or animation from other scene file to the current scene. 4. Replace: to replace an object in the current scene with another one with the same name from other scene file. 5. Import & Export : for importing and Exporting the current scene to all the other file formats the max support like (3D max object, AutoCAD object,vrml scene, etc )
File Menu continue. 6. XRef :(3ds max Externally Referenced File) an externally referenced file, allow multiple animators and modelers to work on one scene at the same time without interfering with each other's work.can be an object or scene. 7. Archive: creates a compressed archive file or a text file listing the scene bitmaps and their path names.
Edit Menu. Edit menu contains the normal editing commands like Undo,Redo,Delete,and selection options. Hold: saves all the objects and settings of the current scene temporary. Fetch: restores the scene stored and saved by the hold command.
Edit Menu Continue. Clone: Creates a new instance of the object that instance can be one of three types. 1. Copy : normal copy of the object. 2. Instance: an instance of the object any change in one of them will immediately occurs in the other one. 3. Reference: will create a copy referenced to that object any change in the parent object will occur at the new one but u can t change in the new one to change it u must change the reference from the modification menu which will do the change to both the objects the reference first then the new object too.
Tools Menu. Transform Type-In: allows you to enter precise values for move, rotate, and scale objects. Selection floater: opens a floater dialog Enables you to select objects in the scene. Display Floater: contains most of the functions on the Display panel. You can leave the Display floater up while you work in your scene, making it easier to change viewport displays without changing the current command panel.
Tools Menu Continue. Layer Floater: where you can create and delete layers. You can also view and edit the settings for all of the layers in your scene, as well as the objects associated with them. Light Lister: Enables you to control and change a number of features for each light in the scene. Mirror: enables you to move one or more objects while mirroring their orientation.
Tools Menu Continue. Array: enables you to create an array of objects based on the current selection. Align: lets you align the current selection to a target selection. Snapshot: enables you to clone an animated object over time.
Group Menu. Enables users to deal with more than object as one object by grouping this objects. And this menu contains all the commands related to grouping operation like (Group, Ungroup, Close, Open, Attach, Detach)
Views Menu. View Menu offers the user a collection of commands to deal with the viewports and how objects are viewed in it. Undo: undo View Change cancels the last change made to the current viewport. Redo: redo View Change cancels the last Undo in the current viewport. Save Active view: saves the settings of the active view. Restore Active View: restores a view setting to the active view. Grids: Control the setting of the grids.
Views Menu continue. Viewport Background :controls the display of the background image in the active viewport. Update background: updates the background image displayed in the active viewport. Reset Background Transform: rescales and recenters the current background to fit an orthographic or user viewport. Show Transform Gizmo: toggles the display of the Transform gizmo axis tripod for all viewports when objects are selected and a transform is active.
Views Menu continue. Ghosting : displaying wireframe "ghost copies" of an animated object at a number of frames before or after the current frame. Key Times: shows the frame numbers along a displayed animation trajectory. Key times correspond to the settings in Time-configuration for Frame.
Views Menu continue. Redraw All Views: refreshes the display in all viewports. Activate All Maps: turns on the Show Map In Viewport flag for all materials assigned to the scene. Deactivate All Maps: turns off the Show Map In Viewport flag for all materials assigned to the scene. Viewport Configuration: displays the viewport configuration dialog, You use controls on this dialog to set options for viewport control.
Create Menu. The most frequently and easy menu that you can user in 3Ds Max as well as the modify menu (later) we use it for creating any primitive object what ever it is simple,complex,3d, 2d(shapes), dummies, helpers but all of these primitives and objects are predefined in the 3Ds Max libs. Continents of this menu will be discussed in the modeling section.
Modify Menu. Very Important menu, all the modeling process and operations will be done using commands in this menu for all kids and techniques of modeling (Ploy, patch, Mesh, NURBS,etc..) This menu deals also with modifying of all kind of objects that allow modifications (simple primitives, complex and extended, 2d shapes,compound,etc..) Continents of this menu will be discussed in the modeling section.
Character Menu. This Menu used for creating animated characters after modeling the character we use this menu to assign an animation for this character this menu is for character animations only other objects animation can be done using another animation methods.
Character Menu Continue Boons tool: A Bones system is a jointed, hierarchical linkage of bone objects that can be used to animate other objects or hierarchies.
Character Menu Continue. Creating bones Continue
Animation Menu. Animation Menu contains commands that control and create animations in the scene. IK solver: creates an inverse kinematic solution to rotate and position links in a chain. Animation constraints : are used to help automate the animation process. They can be used to control an object s position, rotation, or scale through a binding relationship with another object
Animation Menu. Make Preview: makes a quickly simple render of the scene and save it as AVI file. In this mode there is no rendering features used at all, this method used to check the animations in huge scenes where watching animation in normal Viewports is difficult ad slow. View preview: views a previously made preview. Rename preview: renames a previously made preview.
Graph Editors. This menu offers users a collection of commands to deal with track view and schematic view components. (track view to show the track view,new track view,save track view,delete track view) (new schematic view,save schematic view,delete schematic view).
Render Menu. This menu contains all the commands and components that the user will need in the rendering operation like (render engine, render settings, lighting technique, Environment, effects,etc..) It also contains the Material Editor component that used for creating and editing the materials used in the scene.
Main Tool bar. Undo Redo Select and Link Unlink Selection. Bind to space warp. Selection Filter Select Select by name. Selection Region Window/cross selection Select and move Select and rotate
Main Tool bar. Select and scale. Reference coordinate system. Use Center Flyout. select and manipulate. (2D,2.5D,3D) snap. Angular snap. Percent Snap. Spinner snap. Named Selection set Named Selection set Mirror Alien. Layer Selection. Curve Editor. Schematic Editor. Material Editor. Render.
Create Panel. Geometry : creates renderable 3D geometries ( standard,extended, compound, etc ) Shapes: create the 2D shapes used in the scene. Lights : creates lights ( omnie, target spot, target direct, free spot, free target, ski light,etc ). Camera : creates the Cameras that will be used in the scene there s two kinds of cameras ( target or Free camera). Helpers : create the helpers objects that 3Ds Max offers ( dummies, Measurements, etc..) Space Wrapper : create space wrappers that can be applied to Geometry objects to effect it. Systems: combine objects, controllers, and hierarchies to provide geometry associated with some kind of behavior
Modify Panel. This panel contain the object that you want to modify and rollout for all its parameters. Modifier list: to apply a modifier to that object. Modification stack : contains all the modification that have been applied to the object ordered from old to latest modifiers applied. Parameters rollout and any other rollout associated to the selected modifier from the modification stack. This panel is used to modify and edit the objects it the main toll that will be used in objects modeling and designing.
Material Editor. This component is used for creating and editing the materials that exist in the scene. This component contains list of all the materials that exist in the scene with a collection of new materials (slandered materials) for creating new materials. It contains list of rollout that enables the users to modify the parameters and characteristics of the materials to create new materials. Like the color, texture, reflection, refraction (transparency), self lamination, etc.. It offers the users a collection of predefined Materials saved in the material library files open from the material browser.
Track View. Enables the users to deal with the objects parameters over the time as curves that can be edited to edit the movement or animation behavior of this parameter over the time.
3Ds Max 6.0 Working with 3Ds Max.
Working with 3Ds Max. To Create a good quality scene or image using 3Ds max there s some requirement that must exist in the scene in order to produce a good product. The object. Materials. Lights. Cameras. Animations.
Objects. The objects that can be represented in the scene can be predefined primitives and models or user designed models.
Predefined Models. Standard primitives: the simple primitives offered by 3Ds Max like ( box, sphere, cylinder, tours, etc.) can be created from the create panel or the create menu. Extended primitives : more complex primitives that are defined and offered by 3Ds Max like (chamfer box, chamfer cylinder, capsule, hose, hedra, oil tank, etc..)
User Designed Models. Any model that have been designed and modeled by the user is a User Designed model. Theres so many modeling techniques like (poly, mesh, patch and NURBS ) modeling.
Modeling Techniques. Poly and Mesh : are very similar but the poly is better than the mesh it has more modeling tools and more flexible than the mesh modeling it can be considered as an developed version of the mesh modeling. NURBS : (Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines) is a technique for interactively modeling 3D curves and surfaces. Patch : the same as the ploy but with different tools for modeling.
Materials & Textures There s a a difference between the material and the texture. Texture : is the image or the picture the will be applied to one property of the Material like (diffusion color, opacity, bump, reflection, etc.. ). To apply a texture to a model we apply the texture of image to the diffuse property of the material associated to the model. The material : is the skin that covers the model there s a set of properties associated to each material changing these properties produces a different material.
Materials & Textures continue. Diffuse: the color or texture of the material. Opacity : the transparency of the material. Self Illumination : the self shining degree of the object color or texture. Bump : to assign a prominence texture to the material (to increase the details of the objects with out the need for complicated modeling.) Reflection: to assign a reflection map to an object to represent the global environment reflection that can occur on the object if it was really reflective object.
Materials Types. Standard Material : the default material supported by the 3Ds Max and have all the previous properties. Raytrace: creates fully raytraced reflections and refractions. It also supports fog, color density, translucency, fluorescence. Architectural: provides a physically accurate material. It is especially intended for use with the default scanline renderer and radiosity. Mental ray: are provided for use with the mental ray render.
Materials Types continue. Matt\Shadow: is specifically for making an object into a matt object that reveals the current environment map. A matte object is effectively invisible in the scene, but it can receive shadows cast onto it from other objects. Shell: is for storing and viewing rendered textures. Advanced Light override: is used to finetune the effects of a material on radiosity or the light tracer. This material is not required for calculating advanced lighting, but it can help improve the result.
Materials Types continue. LightScape: helps support import and export of data from the Lightscape product. Ink 'n Paint: gives a cartoon appearance to objects. The DirectX 9 Shader: enables you to shade objects in viewports using DirectX 9 (DX9) shaders. To use this material, you must have a display driver that supports DirectX 9, and you must be using the Direct3D display driver. Other material types fall into the category of Compound materials
Compound Materials. Blend: mixes two materials on a single side of a surface. Composite: mixes up to 10 materials, using additive colors, subtractive colors, or opacity mixing. Double-Sided: lets you assign different materials to the front and back faces of an object. Morpher: uses the Morpher modifier to manage multiple materials over time. Multi/Sub-Object: uses the sub-object level to assign multiple materials to a single object, based on material ID values. Shellac: material superimposes one material on another using additive composition. Top/Bottom: material lets you assign different materials to the top and bottom of faces of an object.
Lights. Lights are objects that simulate real lights such as household or office lamps, the light instruments used in stage and film work, and the sun itself. Different kinds of light objects cast light in different ways, emulating different kinds of real-world light sources.
Target Spotlight. A spotlight casts a focused beam of light like a flashlight, a follow spot in a theater, or a headlight. A target spotlight uses a target object to aim the camera.
Free Spotlight. A spotlight casts a focused beam of light like a flashlight, a follow spot in a theater, or a headlight. Unlike a targeted spotlight, a Free Spot has no target object. You can move and rotate the free spot to aim it in any direction.
Targeted Directional lights. Directional lights cast parallel light rays in a single direction, as the sun does (for all practical purposes) at the surface of the earth. Directional lights are primarily used to simulate sunlight. You can adjust the color of the light and position and rotate the light in 3D space.
Free Directional lights. Unlike a targeted directional light, a Free Direct light has no target object. You can move and rotate the light object to aim it in any direction.
Omni light. An Omni light casts rays in all directions from a single source. Omni lights are useful for adding "fill lighting" to your scene, or simulating point source lights
Skylight light. The Skylight light models daylight. It is meant for use with the Light Tracer You can set the color of the sky or assign it a map. The sky is modeled as a dome above the scene.
Cameras. Cameras present a scene from a particular point of view. Camera objects simulate stillimage, motion picture, or video cameras in the real world.
Animation. The basic way to animate is quite simple. You animate the transform parameters of any object to change its position, rotation, and scale over time. Turning on the Auto Key button, then moving the time slider places you in a state in which any changes you make will create animation for the selected objects in the viewport.
Animation Types. There is a lot of animation types supported by 3Ds Max. 1. Standard animation: changing the objects parameters on time using key frames then the program will calculate the intermediate frames. 2. Constrains animation: where the object animated using a certain constrain (sound wav, path, noise, etc..) 3. Motion Capture Animation : motion capture animation is an animation method where humans use machines to capture their movement to assign it to other 3D character models or any other model.
Animation Types. 4. Characters Animation: where user can use a certain behavior in the animation (steps, speed, etc..). 5. IK animation : type of animation used to animate Machines and electronic robots where the arms of the object animated under certain constrains and behavior (can be used for character animation.) 6. Physical Computation : where you assign a physical parameters to each object on the scene and global environmental physical values like (gravity, wind direction, wind speed, objects mass, etc..)
Good Scene Requirements. 1. Accurately Modeled Models. 2. High level Detailed materials. 3. Accurate lights distribution (supporting indirect lights will increase the image realty in a good way ) 4. Cameras ( the picturing process and the setting of the camera helps in increasing the final image quality.) 5. Global Environment. 6. Animation. 7. Special Effects. (if needed)