[CP5670]

I have to make a visual exhibit for my ISTS project (on one of those three-part presentation boards) and am planning to include several graphic plots involving the subject matter, since that's about the only thing in this area that people would find attractive. Mathematica's internal renderer is pretty basic, so I exported the generic model as a 3ds file instead. The problem is that I don't how to do anything beyond the point modeling basics in 3D Studio max (4.2) and the program has too many functions to learn quickly by just playing around; most things I try seem to do something different than what I want. I was thinking that one of you might be able to direct me on how to do some of these things.

I will probably be including 10 images on the board, maybe half of which will be 3D. Here is a sample surface in 3ds format, a graph of R(PF_3/2(x)) in a rectangular area around the origin: http://www.3dap.com/hlp/hosted/procyon/misc/graph.zip

Now I want to basically do these things:
1: smooth everything to remove the jagged edges
2: make the entire surface double-sided
3: add in one or two colored lights
4: make the whole thing look somewhat glossy and translucent
5: render it, of course

Any guidance on how to do this would be appreciated. I still have about ten days until the ISTS week but realistically need to get these renders done by this Friday, since I don't have a color printer at home and will have to get it printed at my dad's workplace.

[Stryke 9]

I'm not really sure how basic you need to go, I'll assume since you know point modeling you know how to apply the Mesh Edit layer to an object and twiddle with properties, though...

1. Use the "Smooth" modifier. Twiddle the values a bit. It's pretty good at interpolating, generally speaking. If you want more control use the Tesselate function in Mesh Edit, and then push verts around.

2. double-sided surfaces are a material thing in MAX- you never get double-sided normals. If it's important that the mesh itself is double-sided, go into Mesh Edit, select the Polys level, clone everything and then hit the "flip" button under normals. Otherwise, just set a material to be two-sided with the little checkbox in the mat editor and apply it.

3. Put in a light, then set the color. It's the only function on the properties tab that's a color, not text.

4. Again, that's all in the materials. High specular value, lower opacity. Just fool around with numbers until you get something you want, that's what the rest of us do.

5. Um, hit the "quick render" button in the tab panel or go up to the menu and select it.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
1. Use the "Smooth" modifier. Twiddle the values a bit. It's pretty good at interpolating, generally speaking. If you want more control use the Tesselate function in Mesh Edit, and then push verts around.

2. double-sided surfaces are a material thing in MAX- you never get double-sided normals. If it's important that the mesh itself is double-sided, go into Mesh Edit, select the Polys level, clone everything and then hit the "flip" button under normals. Otherwise, just set a material to be two-sided with the little checkbox in the mat editor and apply it.

3. Put in a light, then set the color. It's the only function on the properties tab that's a color, not text.

4. Again, that's all in the materials. High specular value, lower opacity. Just fool around with numbers until you get something you want, that's what the rest of us do.

5. Um, hit the "quick render" button in the tab panel or go up to the menu and select it.

1) "mesh smooth", be accurate or he's gonna search for hours
Tesselate works the other way around ( it adds volume - starting from the edges ends -whereas meshsmooth cuts into the mesh - starts from the edges center ).
But I'll doubt you'll get the result you want, unless you've already chamfered the edges...

2) believe it or not, that's the same in every program or realtime engine: it's always a material property

3)what he said  ( create panel, light tab, local light )

4) not sure what you mean, CP, so go with what he said

5) hit F9

[Stryke 9]

In Ray Dream polys were always double-sided...

[Taristin]

How does one connect something like a tunel/tube from on part of the ship to another, (Like say I had a long box, and I wanted to have it connect to the main hull at two points, or some parts of Ryx's new nero...) how do I connect it to the mesh?

And How does one make holes in meshes? Like the arcadia hole?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Raa Tor'h

And How does one make holes in meshes? Like the arcadia hole?

Can build 'around the hole' (so to speak), or inverse-extrude (maybe use bevel too, not sure), delete the end cap and weld.

There's more than one way, of course.

[Nico]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
In Ray Dream polys were always double-sided...

that's just a display thing. and that's not really smart, too.

For the arcadia hole, on such a low poly mesh? boolean

[CP5670]

okay thanks; I will try out some of those things and see what comes up.