Need alot of help with 3ds max ASAP please

[superangry]

Sorry for any misspellings IE does not have spell check and when I tried to run the spell check for this site it wants me to download other software which can't be done at this time.

I didnt realise this was for actitectuar until after i registered but hopefully I can still get some help.

I am using 3ds max 2013, I have been having problems with it since I started using it 2 weeks ago. Google, the autodesk help site, and three 3ds max books are not helping fix any of the problems I am coming across.

The latest problem that has showed its head was I made a chamfer to create a rounded edge, since 3ds max has not showen me any other way to round an edge, than I moved some edges around and the chamfer was just creating to much problems with my model so I thought "will ill just undo up to the chamfer" but guess what I had made to many changes to the model since the chamfer. So i just closed out my model and reopened it to delete all the changes since the last time I saved it but 3ds max decided to save after the chamfer so I was stuck with the chamfer so I started deleting everything that was attached to the chamfer so that I could just redo the model part, but now im stuck again. Which brings me to my current problem and question.

 

How do I create a polygon to fill the hole that the deleting created?

 

Sounds super easy but I am not finding the answer.

[superangry]

-_- guess what? while waiting for someone to reply to my post on this and another site I keep playing around with the program. The answer to my question is select all the edges using border and than slecte the option cap under edit borders. I will still keep this post open though because I still will need help.

[Scott Schroeder]

First, max doesn't save on it's own. Yes, it saves backups at intervals but in a separate file from where you are saving. You tell max to save your working file.

 

Second, 2 weeks is nothing in the scheme of things when learning Max. If you get this frustrated right off the bat, you have a long road in front of you. Learning Max is very hard, there is no mistake about that. It is especially hard if you have never used a modeling program before. It is a very in depth program with more than one way to achieve your objective.

 

Third, to answer your question, you want to use the "Bridge" function in the polygon tools. Select two edges on either side of the gap, hit bridge, and it will close the gap. Assuming your model is created right.

 

Bridge is a very basic tool for poly modeling. Your books should talk about it, if not, buy some new books because the ones you are using are terrible. If you are skipping around in the books just to do the stuff that looks cool, I would advise you to start at chapter one and read every page.

 

You can also create rounded edges with either the turbosmooth or meshsmooth modifier. Though, you have to have proper supporting edges which control how "round" your edge becomes.

 

You can also remove the edges around the chamfer and not delete the faces. Removing the edges will remove the chamfer edge but keep your face intact. To do this, select all of the edges you want to delete and while holding down "CTRL" hit "Remove" in the polygon menu. This will remove both the edge AND the associated vertices. If you just remove the edge, the verts will remain and cause issues later on.

 

Though be aware no matter how you remove the chamfer, you will not have a 90 degree edge anymore. You will need to move your verts/edges/faces back in line with each other.

[superangry]

thank you for the answer but

 

 

1. if it doesnt save on its own than tell me how it magically saved the chamfer when I had not saved my file since I had first opened it today?

 

2. Yeah I get frustrated, hey you might, if you have been searching and reading and messing around with 3ds for hours trying to do one thing in 3ds and your answer is not showing up, get a bit frustrated to.

 

3. Bridge does NOT work, I had read that people used that, I tried it multiple ways and it never did a thing, so bridge is not the answer I needed. The answer is Cap. It solved everything, and when I extrude it, it stays at the 90. The books talk about bridge a bit but never answered my questions. Because it never assumes that people will actually have random problems show up when trying to model.

 

Also if my books are so terrible and need to be updated tell me where I can get a better book that the 3ds max 2013 edition. -_-

 

I started with chapter 1 and made it all the way to chapter 4, doing all the tutorials, and guess what there are alot of errors in the book because I will be doing every step word for word and my samples still mess up a bit because they are telling me to use the wrong tool or to deminsion it the wrong way. chapter 5 was useless for what im doing and than chapter 6 is about the modeling process. Of course I have to go all the way back to my 3ds max 9 book in order to understand anything at all when it comes to the modeling because 11 and 12 use a much harder to understand way.

 

Its way to late to go back and try to not delete the useless and problematic chamfer, so I will stick with my cap comand. I tried to delete the edges and vertexs when I would do that it would still delete the polygons connected to the vertexs and edges even if I only deleted one thing at a time. plus it would still leave behind stuff I did not want.

[beestee]

If you are not confident with the method you are using to modify your objects, you can basically save the state of your mesh by applying an Edit Mesh or Edit Poly modifier, do your experimenting, and if you are unhappy with the result just delete the modifier and you will be back to your original mesh.

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Benjamin's recommendation to add an Edit Poly to the stack is good and applies in more than just "not sure" circumstances.

 

Cap may not be what you want. Select Border then Shift-Scale may be a better start depending on your geometry needs.

[cg_Butler]

Books are only as good as the person reading them..... Computers can't create anything without user inputs......GIGO. I'd suggest adding an edit poly modifier to your object each time you want to do something different like chamfering, capping holes, bridging etc. That way, you can just delete the modifier(s) and your mesh will go back to it's original state. Also, if you want a curve, don't chamfer it, fillet it. Chamfer = straight, Fillet = curved.

 

Also, I have been using max for over 15 years and i am still learning, two weeks really if nothing.

 

1. Are you sure you're not opening the autobackup file that max is saving? That's probably the "magic" of max you speak of. Scott is right in the max doesn't save over your file unless you tell it to.

2. Something as simple as a fillet or cap holes in max is simple/basic practice and the correct Google search or help search would have saved you two weeks searching for the right answer. I'm amazed you had the problem for two weeks.

3. Bridge DOES work, just not for your problem! ;-)

 

Lastly, Scott was just trying to suggest things, telling someone who offers help that something does NOT work isn't very nice and likely some people may not bother trying to help you in the future if you respond like you know everything, yet are clearly having problems. I don't mean to rant, and appreciate it's difficult to understand meaning behind black and white text, but I generally take capital letters as shouting.........or is that just me? Dam this digital texting era!!

[Scott Schroeder]

When bridge doesn't work, it's generally a sign that your model topology is wrong. I'll also say that adding the edit poly modifier when you are unsure is a great tip. But just don't stack 10 of them on top of each other. Max can and will get very unstable when you have a heavy modifier stack (multiple modifiers on top of each other). So if whatever you are doing, extrude, chamfer, etc works and you are happy, it may be best to collapse back to one nice edit poly to keep your scene clean and save you a headache later on.

 

Like Andy, I've been at this for over 10 years using Max professionally. When I started to teach Max and looked at the new Max books I found myself going, "Holy crap, Max can do that now?" I was used to doing things the old school way from Max 6,7,8 and way before the graphite tools. So it is true, no matter how long you've been at this you will always be learning new tips and tools.

[Tommy L]

mmmyeah, Im not sure signing up as 'super angry' and putting a little red furious face on your first post probably wont garner too much empathy. That said, we've all been there.

I'd recommend just starting out with really simple hand-held tutorials. Tutorials ship with max and walk you through the basics pretty well. If you try and just trouble shoot your way through your first project then you''ll learn eventually, but not nearly as quick as if you do go through some thorough tutorials first. You'll just have that red fury face going for a while longer than is really necessary....

[superangry]

I did not have the problem for 2 weeks, I had it for about 2-3 hours. I have only been using max for 2 weeks. Technially 4 days since I am only allowed to use the program twice a week. What I said was that 3ds max has been giving me problemS since I started using it. With the area that needed the curve the fillet option was grayed out thus not allowing me to use it only allowing me to chamfer it, and yeah it is not super nice and smooth but a chamfer does make a nice curve when the correct settings are used. Also please note I did google and search for the help online before coming here with my problem. If it was that easy of a fix why didnt it show up? When I said bridge does not work it was implied that it did not work for my problem. If max gets so unstable when you extrude and what not, why does all the tutorials I'm finding in the books and on max all tell you to do that? Also this model is my 5th project I had used the tutorials before in my past projects and I am still refearing to them but they really are not helping me out much at all.

[superangry]

Now I am stuck on how to change the color of my model. I know how to change the base color, but I mean how do I actually add different colors to different parts of it since all the polygons are all connected there for even when I just select one polygon it changes the color of the whole thing.

 

I am reading something in the books about something called "UV Unwrapping" but it's not very stright forward, and is leaving me confused about what its trying to say.

 

this http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100804135636AAMoVw5 says to apply a texture but says nothing about how that would actually work.

and all this one http://www.digitaltutors.com/forum/showthread.php?22071-Coloring-a-Selected-Polygon-in-3ds-max says is to use multi sub object map again not saying anything other than that.

 

Plus the only real information I'm finding in the books about the applying textures is when it applys it to the whole item, such as adding bricks to a wall. Nothing about how to change just a small part of the whole.

[Nic H]

hello

have you tried reading the manual

thankyou

[cg_Butler]

Fair do's. No harm done.

 

I've never had any consistent annoying problems with extruding, bridging etc or any elements to do with edit poly. It's always pretty stable. The only times i have had a problem is when the geometry i'm trying to edit is poorly constructed in the forst place. Downloaded furniture being the most trouble.

 

Try welding vertices and tidying up the mesh as much as you can before you begin your editing. It can save you a lot of headaches in the long run. I think a lot of people that see all these really cool images that people are creating assume that they can acieve these results quickly. I think that's unrealistic. Good results can be achieved with hard work and time.

 

One thing that you need is patience, others are the ability to understand what causes problems with geometry, how to fix these problems and a very important one is learning from any mistakes so you don't do them again. I'm not saying you've made mistakes, just giving you tips on sides of a visualizers personality that I think help in the field.

 

You'll get there, and i you've come to the right place for advice.

[superangry]

nicnic next time I need someone to not read my whole post and want a useless answer that does not even address my problem I will give you a call until than either answer the question correctly or don't post thank you.

[superangry]

Since it has been over 2 days and my original post still has not been approved guess what that means? That means I am having to repost my question and you all don't get any links or other info that I had found and posted in my past post. Have a problem with it take it to the moders.

I need to color only certain polygons not the whole model. However when I click a polygon and change its color the whole model changes with it. So how do I change only certain polygons off of the whole model?

[cg_Butler]

Can I just give you some friendly advice?

 

I feel you've got off on the wrong foot on this forum. Your tone and manner has not impressed anybody, hence the lack of responses and general mood of everyone's posts. If you want help and advice, lighten up a little and accept that it can be difficult for us to answer your pleas correctly sometimes. We might not quite understand what you mean or want and a lot of people won't even give you the time of day if you demand answers and then annoy people with your responses to their suggestions. Phrase your wording and sentences in a less aggressive tone and we will all be happy!! Either you are young, or your primary language isn't English/American. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and help you on this though, i won't continue to do so though so please chill a little.

 

What you need to do is create a multi-sub object material. You can have many sub materials within that of various colours. Then within your edit poyl/mesh modifier, select the faces you want to be the first material and change their ID to 1. Then select the faces you want to be the second material and give them an ID of two. Carry on doing this until you have coloured all the faces the colours you want them to be.

 

If you get stuck, search the help file for multi-sub material and edit poly face id's.

 

I hope that helps and please lighten up. We are all mates here mate!

[superangry]

Thank you Andy you are one of the few nice ones here, and excuse me for getting mad at nicnic over there who does not know how to read or they would know that I had already read the manuals, and searched google, and 3ds max books for information before coming here.

[cg_Butler]

It's hard to imagine you didn't find your answer even with all your prior research that's all. I can see their point of view too to be honest with you, but I fully believe everyone might need a little nudge in the right direction sometimes.

 

At least you didn't ask the worst question out there which is along the lines of "can you please tell me how to make the perfect render?" Those ones I don't even have time for. :-)

[superangry]

While Andy had the moders actually read and approved of my post 2 days ago when I had first tried asking about the coloring process. I did provide web links and snipits from my books, about what they had said to do and how I was having trouble trying to figure out what they where talking about. So this time I did find a few answers but they where not clean cut and simple to understand like your response.

[cg_Butler]

Does my previous answer not help? Look at the multi sub object material and using polygon id's to apply different materials to different parts. It's really easy.

[Scott Schroeder]

What books do you have? Everything you are struggling with is clearly laid out in most of those, especially if you have the Max 2013 Bible. Even if you find an answer, say from the Digital Tutors link, why don't you look that term up in the index of the book? If someone says multi-sub material and you don't know what that is or how it works, look it up in the index. Or, hit F1 inside max to bring up the help file and search multi-sub material. It sounds as if a lot of your frustration will be alleviated if you learn how to use search terms. Max books are very dense and part of learning Max is learning how to search terms and keywords. It seems as if you find the answer but it's not a specific how-to, so you get frustrated and give up. Really all you need to do is search the terms given in the original answer.

 

As like Andy mentioned, I have a very hard time believing that you searched Google or your max books and did not find a good answer for multi-sub or uvw unwrap. Searching Google for "3ds Max multi sub" brings up a ton of easy to follow how to tutorials. It helps when searching Google to put "3ds Max or Max" in front of everything to help filter out some of the random pages.

 

It also sounds like you are doing a typical new learner mistake and jumping from point A to C in the process. You have to take this process in a very linear and methodical approach. My students do this all the time in their final project when I turn them loose in Max. It's not a bad thing, it is just part of the learning process. After they have completely backed themselves into a hole, I help them backtrack and figure out where they went wrong. In 100% of the cases they get stuck because they either skipped over the introductions or skipped the terms and just jumped right into the tutorial/process. Most of the time they know what they want to do but don't know what it's called in Max and there is where the disconnect starts to form.

 

Your example of the material issue is a good one. You know what you want to do, but can't figure out how to do it or what the process is called. Go to the chapter on materials and start reading page by page and word for word (boring, I know) and you'll see the multi-sub get mentioned and referenced to the other chapters (say polygons and face IDs) that discuss it. Follow the books around, use sticky notes to mark pages, scribble notes down in a notebook and you'll find getting information is a lot easier. Even after all these years I still have a Max specific notebook where I scribble notes.

 

I'd also stay away from Yahoo Answers as a resource. That place is pretty much amateur central.