Autodesk 3ds Max 2014 Essentials: Autodesk Official Press

518 Pages·2013·27.88 MB·English

by  Randi L. Derakhshani

Table of Contents
Cover
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Introduction
Introduction
Who Should Read This Book
What Is Covered in This Book
The Essentials Series
Chapter 1: The 3ds Max Interface
The Workspace
Transforming Objects Using Gizmos
Graphite Modeling Tools Set
Command Panel
Time Slider and Track Bar
File Management
Chapter 2: Your First 3ds Max Project
Setting Up a Project Workflow
Time to Model a Clock!
In Splines We Trust
Bringing It All Together
Chapter 3: Modeling in 3ds Max: Architectural Model
Part I
Units Setup
Importing a CAD Drawing
Creating the Walls
Creating the Doors
Creating the Window
Adding a Floor and Ceiling
Chapter 4: Modeling in 3ds Max: Architectural Model
Part II
Modeling the Couch
Modeling the Lounge Chair
Chapter 5: Introduction to Animation
Animating the Ball
Refining the Animation
Chapter 6: Animation Principles
Anticipation and Momentum in Knife Throwing
Chapter 7: Character Poly Modeling: Part I
Setting Up the Scene
Beginning the Soldier Model
Chapter 8: Character Poly Modeling: Part II
Completing the Main Body
Creating the Accessories
Putting on the Boots
Creating the Hands
Chapter 9: Character Poly Modeling: Part III
Creating the Head
Merging and Attaching the Head’s Accessories
Chapter 10: Introduction to Materials: Interiors and
Furniture
The Slate Material Editor
Material Types
mental ray Material Types
Shaders
Mapping the Couch and Chair
Mapping the Window and Doors
Chapter 11: Textures and UV Workflow: The Soldier
UV Unwrapping
Seaming the Rest of the Body
Applying the Color Map
Applying the Bump Map
Applying the Specular Map
Chapter 12: Character Studio: Rigging
Character Studio Workflow
Associating a Biped with the Soldier Model
Chapter 13: Character Studio: Animation
Animating the Soldier
Chapter 14: Introduction to Lighting: Interior Lighting
Three-Point Lighting
3ds Max Lights
Lighting a Still Life in the Interior Space
Selecting a Shadow Type
Atmospheres and Effects
Light Lister
Chapter 15: 3ds Max Rendering
Rendering Setup
Cameras
Safe Frames
Raytraced Reflections and Refractions
Rendering the Interior and Furniture
Chapter 16: mental ray
mental ray Renderer
Final Gather with mental ray
mental ray Materials
Appendix: Autodesk® 3ds Max® Certification

Acquisitions Editor: Mariann Barsolo Development Editor: Tom Cirtin
Technical Editor: Jon McFarland Production Editor: Rachel Gunn Copy
Editor: Judy Flynn
Editorial Manager: Pete Gaughan Production Manager: Tim Tate
Vice President and Executive Group Publisher: Richard Swadley Vice
President and Publisher: Neil Edde Book Designer: Happenstance Type-O-
Rama Compositor: Craig W. Johnson, Happenstance Type-O-Rama
Proofreader: Candace Cunningham Indexer: Nancy Guenther
Project Coordinator, Cover: Katherine Crocker Cover Designer: Ryan Sneed
Cover Image: Randi L. Derakhshani
Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana Published
simultaneously in Canada ISBN: 978-1-118-57514-7
ISBN: 978-1-118-72366-1 (ebk.)
ISBN: 978-1-118-75025-4 (ebk.)
ISBN: 978-1-1187-2364-7 (ebk.)
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Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing Autodesk® 3ds Max® 2014 Essentials. This book is part
of a family of premium-quality Sybex books, all of which are written by
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To Max Henry
Acknowledgments
We are thrilled to be a part of the team working to publish Autodesk® 3ds Max®
2014 Essentials, a complete update and style change to our previous Introducing
Autodesk® 3ds Max® series. Education is an all-important goal in life and should
always be approached with eagerness and earnestness. We would like to show
appreciation to the teachers who inspired us; you can always remember the
teachers who touched your life, and to them we say thanks. We would also like
to thank all of our students, who taught us a lot during the course of our many
combined academic years.
Special thanks go to Mariann Barsolo, Thomas Cirtin, Rachel Gunn, and Pete
Gaughan, our editors at Sybex who have been professional, courteous, and ever
patient. Our appreciation also goes to technical editor Jon McFarland, who
worked hard to make sure this book is of the utmost quality. We could not have
done this revision without their help.
In addition, thanks to Dariush’s mother and brother for their love and support,
not to mention the life-saving babysitting services.
Writing on the HP EliteBook
Having a good computer system is important with this type of work, so a special
thank you goes to HP for keeping us on the cutting edge of workstation hardware
by providing us with a fully decked-out EliteBook 8760w, which was our
primary computer in writing this book. What struck us about the laptop was that
it was not only portable, making it easy for a writing team to collaborate; it was
also powerful enough to run truly demanding tasks. It takes a special machine to
run graphics-intensive applications, such as Autodesk 3ds Max, and we were
thrilled to write this book on the HP EliteBook.
Running an Intel i7 CPU alongside 16 GB of RAM and an Nvidia Quadro
5010M (with a whopping 6 GB of memory) gave us the muscle we needed to
run multiple applications alongside 3ds Max splendidly. Dual 320 GB hard
drives gave us plenty of space for Windows 7 Professional and its applications
and still left lots of room for renders. We opted out of the RAID option to mirror
the drives (you can also stripe them for performance), but that doesn’t mean we