Making an Office Chair in 3ds max - part01

[PiledotNET]

Hi guys, this is my first attempt to make a tutorial in English.

This is part01, making the wheel. You have to tell me how it is to keep going making it in the right way. Tnks.

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In this tutorial I'm going to teach you how to create the model, materials and lighting of this render below in 3ds max 5:



In the chapters your're going to learn a lot of tecnics and tricks. I'm going to guide you step by step so any person I will be able to follow them. Hope you like it, lets begin!

[PiledotNET]

* I have all the original pictures in hires. This is just a preview.

1) Create a Sphere in Perspective viewport, from this object we are going to model all parts of the wheel. Press the F4 hotkey to make all edges visible.



2) Rotate it 90º, now we have the direction of edges favorable to our objectives.



3) Convert it to Editable Poly, now we are going to create some new polygons. In Polygon subobject, select all top center polygons:



4) With Extrude tool, select Local Normal option at Extrusion Type group. Now specifie an Extrusion Height to create a superior layer.


5) From this layer, we are going to extrude new polygons, creating the conection between the wheel and the leg.

[PiledotNET]

6) With a square selection of polygons, make a hole deleting them.



7) Adjuste the format of this hole to be similar to a circle.


8) Now in Border subobject, activate the Select and Move tool and select the hole. Hold Shift key and move it in Z axis, this is going to create new polygons.


9) After this, use Select and Uniform Scale tool to flatten those edges. Repeat the same process more 2 times.


10) If you find necessary, move the vertices of the corner between the layer and connector for a smooth result.

[PiledotNET]

11) Now select this polygons in both sides:



12) Still inside the Polygon subobject, click one time in MSmooth tool and the polygons of your selection will be subdivided by a local Mesh Smooth. With this we are going to have a median-smooth transition from the layer to the conector.



13) If you wish, resize the polygons in the connector not affected by the local MSmooth to match the new size of the subdivided polygons.



14) The new polygons that we've created do not have an appropriate smoothing group. They aren't smooth as the others:



15) 3ds max have an excelent tool for this case, it calls Auto Smooth and can be found in Polygons Properties submenu. Use CTRL + A hotkey to select all polygons and click one time in Auto Smooth button. Automatically 3ds max will remake the selected polygons smoothing groups.

[PiledotNET]

16) The base of the wheel is already completed, lets move to the last 2 details. Select the exterior polygons of both sides:



17) Make sure that Use Pivot Point Center option is selected and than use Select and Uniform Scale tool to flatten those polygons a little. With Use Pivot Point Center option 3ds max will use as reference the center of the two selection group to flatten them separately.



18) Now change to Use Selection Center option and do the same thing, the polygons will be moved to the center of the object breaking the ball looking of the wheel.



19) To finish the model, lets make a little detail in the center of the wheel. Select the middle vertice in the center of both sides.



20) With Chamfer tool, create a new circular group of vertices.



21) Back to Polygon subobject, select the two new polygons created and use Extrude Tool with a negative value to create a hole.



22) Select all polygons and use Auto Smooth again to ajust the smoothing groups and it's done. Since this wheel will not be in prominence, we will not need to worry about it details to deep.



End of Part 01. Tell me what you think, if it's to much detailed or not, thing like this.

[Th3Eagle]

YOu're going great i just learned soemthing

[Tom-3DT]

great start, looking forward to seeing more!

Tom

[primitive]

Excellent. Keep on working like this and you've given the world a great tutorial.

[PiledotNET]

*Just to remeber, I have the original images

Part02: Base elements of the chair.

23) After creating the wheel, resize it and move it away for the center of the scene.



24) With a Chamfer Box, create que first leg, like the picture below.



25) Now we have to raise this polygons, creating a nice detail in the leg. When making the shaders, we are going to apply a metal material to the leg and a plastic material do this new detail.



26) With only the leg selected, use the hotkey ALT+Q to enter in the Isolation Mode. In this mode, everything is going to desapeare but the selected object.



27) Convert it to Editable Poly, enter in Polygon subobject and select this polygon:



28) Then, use Grow tool and add to the selection the around polygons.



29) Apply to this selection an negative Extrude, with Local Normal option selected. Now the detail is created.

[PiledotNET]

30) Press CTRL+I, this hotkey will invert the selection. Now we have the hole leg selected, but the detail.



31) Check if this selection have the Material ID 1, we are going to use the IDs to apply different materials to the leg like I sad before, one to the leg (metal - id 1) and one to the detail (plastic - id 2).



32) Ivert the selection again and apply ID 2 for this polygons.



33) Exit from the Isolation Mode. Now we are going to make 3 central cylinders.



34) In the Top Viewport, create a Cylinder, this is going to be the bigger one. Remeber to center the object in the center of the scene, is always nice to have object lined up.



35) This is it in the Perspective Viewport.



36) Now again, enter in the Isolation mode pressing the ALT+Q hotkey. Convert this object to Editable Poly, enter in the Edge subobject and select the upper edges.



37) Use Chamfer Tool to chamfer them two times. The first time:

[PiledotNET]

38) And the second time:



39) Lets smooth this new polygons changing to the Polygon subobject, selecting all object polygons and pressing the Auto Smooth button.



40) Leaving the Isolation Mode, this is what we have:



41) Using the same steps above, create one more cylinder in the center of the scene.



42) Select this two cylinders and enter in the Isolation mode. Enter in the Polygon subobject of the bigger cylinder and than select this polygon:



43) Use Inset tool to create a new group of polygons. Try to keep them near to the second cylinder.



44) After using the Inset tool, 3ds max will keep your preview selection, bevel this selection with Bevel tool. Create a hole, aplying to it a negative Height. Don't forget to use Auto smooth button to smooth this new polygons.

[PiledotNET]

45) Next step, the third cylinder, create it using the same steps explained above.



46) Now go to Isolation Mode with the last two cylinders.



47) Convert the lower one to Editable Poly and use Inset tool in the higher polygon of it, just like the other cylinder.



48) With the same selection, move it up in the Z axis.



49) Use Inset tool again:



50) And finish it with a negative bevel.



51) The base structure of this object is done, we just have to smooth some edges. Same process, select this edges:

[PiledotNET]

52) And chamfer them:



53) Select this edges:



54) And chamfer them:



55) Auto smooth this new polygons and it's done.



56) What we have till now:



57) Spin the wheel about 60 degrees to give it a more natural position.



58) With the Select and Link tool, link the wheel to the leg.

[PiledotNET]

59) Now this is very important because of the array we're going to create: select the Leg, go to the Hierarchy panel, click one time on the Affect Pivot Only button and move the Pivot Point to the center of the scene. After that, click one more time on the Affect Pivot Only.



60) Select the wheel and the leg, go to Tools > Array. Use these settings:



61) After this process, you're going to have 5 legs with 5 wheels.



62) Last step, aplying some new colors. Just for a better visualization.



Part 3 coming soon!

[PiledotNET]

Pheeeewww!!! It's getting harder to describe step by step

Part03: Making the seat.

63) In Viewport Top, create a Rectangle (shape). Remeber to make a square and align it to the center of the scene.



64) Go to its Modify panel and raise the Corner Radius parameter.



65) Establish the height to the Rectangle in Perspective Viewport (Z axis).



66) If you wish, enable the Display as Box option in the legs objects on Properties panel (right click). This will optimize the scene and improving your workflow if your system is slow.



67) Now create another rectangle in Left Viewport.



68) Convert it to Editable Spline, go to Vertex subobject and use Fillet tool to give the rectangle this form:



69) Now back to Perspective Viewport and select the Seat Rectangle (the first one), after this access Create > Geometry > Compound Objects > Loft. With loft tool we are going to create the Seat Border. Click on the Get Shape button and select the second rectangle we've created. At this point remember to select Instance option (under Get Shape button), with this any modification that the Shape suffer, Loft will automatically update the final format of the object.