Anyone know anything about 3dstudiomax?..

Asgaroth on 20/9/2007 at 21:44

A pretty stupid question I'm sure, as I know plenty do...
basically, long story cut slightly less long. I've taken accepted into a business-to-be... sorta, my job is to aid in a two man attempt to make a game. Something I have little experience on, furthermore, my job thus is to create... well from our little 'conversations' ****ing EVERYTHING :laff: I'm not going to let a friend down, so I'll take a whack at it, and just like that I jumped from anim8or, to 3dstudio max...
(blender was too irritating for my liking :eww: )
now, recently I've dedicated all my time to anim8or, and have mastered the creation of (what I presume would be average-poly) swords, axes, and knives(I made an army knife in glory of the theme...) also I've been learning (not very well) the creation of textures... but that is neither here-nor-there.
So, I have a knowledge on creating unmoving, objects I've looked up a few tutorials, but none is a sort of THE tutorial... I don't know anything, I dont understand bones/joints, (I haven't yet learned how to move individual points as I would have in anim8or) and so I worry for my own sake...

anyway, for those of you who have finished, or dont want to read the ins and outs of my problems, here's my plea:
I want (preferably) 1 big tutorial, that would explain
joints
human meshes
the bone structure I've ignored so much about
and basically all I need to know on making moving (or movable) meshes

btw if this is the wrong place for this request... sorry

btw(2): I hear, and witnessed, that blender has a 'game mode' and so wonder if studio max does[if anyone knows, as I'm sure it too will end up being up to me, how, exactly does that work :sweat: ]

--thanks in advance!!!

(and I didnt just get lazy and come straight here, as I'm sure it looks, I've downloaded plenty of tutorials, none were of this particular topic though, and the closest was the making of human face... which involved 2 pictures and complete lack of sense :o )

Ziemanskye on 20/9/2007 at 22:03

Community Chat is almost certainly the wrong place for this kind of thing, but I don't hang out down here much and could be wrong about that.

Beyond that, well, your copy of 3DSMax should have come with a load of tutorials in amongst it's help stuff. So long as what you have is a fairly new version (er, 6 or above, I think) you should have a bit built in (as opposed to optional extra) "called" Character Studio: what this gives you is a object called Biped, which is a pre-formed human skeleton you can rescale to fit the human model you want to animate. You tie the skeleton to the model with Skin or Physique modifiers - tutorials for both should be in the help, and are quite easy to find because it's one of those things that looks harder than actually is.

There is no inbuilt game mode in Max. Consequently, the exact form of how you arrange you animations and how you get them into the game varies by engine to engine: you might find digging around http:\\udn.epicgames.com under the UnrealEngine2 pages useful for how to do things in that instance, and there's similar resources at wiki.source.com (or wherever it is, I never can remember the address) and likely knocking around somewhere for Doom3/Quake4. Check the game/community sites for links on how to do things for the specific engines, even if you're making your own engine it'll give you some idea how these things are done professionally and give you a direction to aim in.

You almost certainly wont find one big tutorial that covers all of what you're looking for, but it's just a case of knowing what the steps are called to help you look for the little tutorials for the bits of things you need to assemble the whole process.

DinkyDogg on 20/9/2007 at 22:04

3Dbuzz.com has some very good video tutorials, but unfortunately they're no longer free. It's 35 bucks for a month's worth of access, but you get access to all their other video tutorials as well, so it might be worth your money. You can download everything and save it for later use if you don't have time for it all in one month's worth of membership. They cover modding for the more popular game engines, which might be useful for your friends. I've yet to find a better introduction to 3D Studio than these guys offer, though for more advanced topics you'll have to either shell out more money for the specialized training DVDs or find another site. The 3Dbuzz forums are pretty good about responding to newbie questions, too.

It sounds to me, though, that you're biting off more than you can chew. A conversion of any commercial game (or building one from scratch) is going to require a lot of modeling and animation, and characters are particularly hard to animate. Is it a mod, and which engine are you using? I'd recommend using an engine like Unreal 2, because its editor is one of the friendliest I've encountered. Hammer's popular as well, but it's much easier to get custom assets into Unreal than into Source. I haven't tried Radiant. There's plenty of scripting to be done for any conversion of UT, so if your buddies are programmers that might be a more realistic but still ambitious option.

aguywhoplaysthief on 21/9/2007 at 02:01

To reiterate what Ziemanskye said, Max has some decent tutorials that should get you making basic rigs in no time flat.

DinkyDogg on 21/9/2007 at 04:42

The tutorials that come with Max are usually good for learning to do a specific thing, but I found that they weren't the best way to begin learning to use the program. But they have the advantage of being free and easily available.

Biped rigs are easy in Max. Look up the tutorial for them. Importing rigged characters into UnrealEd is pretty easy as well.

Ziemanskye on 21/9/2007 at 17:56

You might also want to dig around 3D World magazine: it's coverdisc usually has some video tutorials for things - it used to be the 3D Buzz stuff even. Might be worth checking their back-issues and website and see what you can nab.

Similarly ImagineFX if you have a desire for more concept art/digital painting type stuff (which, if you're designing a whole game, you really will want at some point).

Eldron on 22/9/2007 at 16:54

Go to boards.polycount.net ..

if you survive that first encounter there, then you are on the right direction.

with that said, I use blender over 3dsmax, professionally :) or rather, mix them.

Asgaroth on 2/10/2007 at 21:29

Quote Posted by Eldron

Go to boards.polycount.net ..

if you survive that first encounter there, then you are on the right direction.

with that said, I use blender over 3dsmax, professionally :) or rather, mix them.

now, I have got blender... but... well I thought in all honesty that it was shit... and no I didnt give it a chance but It just looks odd and I find it hard to get around it...
I will, however, try again!

I'm starting to get my head around some of the things in 3dsmax, I suppose it would help if they made a 3d modeling dictionary for such words as 'boolean' and 'spline', as soon as I find what a spline is, I cant start on character modeling. Just as, as soon as I find out what a boolean is, I can make hollows in my buildings for doors etc.
I suppose I'll leave poor ttlg and cheack out these other places

as always, eternal thanks!! :thumb: :thumb:

-also, I'm now no longer alone in this :)

DaveW on 2/10/2007 at 22:39

Blender's game mode is because it's got a built in game engine. 3d Studio Max doesn't, and on top of that, it isn't as rubbish as Blender. Don't bother with it - you've got the tool most people, and the majority in the gaming industry, use for this.

Mingan on 3/10/2007 at 03:31

IIRC a spline is a series of mathematical equations that approximate another equation. eg. Because 3d stuff in computer is made out of polygons, you can't have "curved" lines, only a series of straight lines making the curve. The more lines you have the better your splined curve will be. This is also longer to render.

As for a boolean, it's rather simple : in a general sense, it is a variable that can take one of two values (true or false). For modeling, it usually refers to any object that result when you do an operation on at least two different objects. eg. you create a full cube and substract a smaller cube (ie. make a hollow). The resulting object is called a 'boolean' because it is the result of the operation "object A and not object B".

It looks confusing at first, but you'll get the hang of it eventually.