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Chew Edges Utility

Written March 28th, 2010
Categories: Downloads, Scripts
1 Comment »

This utility will allow you to quickly (although roughly) chew up the edges of solid 3d objects like concrete pillars or walls. This works best with objects that will undergo mesh smoothing in 3dsMax, and you’ll need to disable all object modifiers on the stack before using the plug-in. Be sure to bind the tool to a hotkey in order to use it. Otherwise, you can pull out the code from the macroscript and run it like any other script.

Click this link to download the Chew Edges Utility Script. Just unzip and run it from the Maxscript command menu to open the “Chew Edges” utility panel.

Meshsmoothed Text

Written September 16th, 2009
Categories: Modeling, Videos
6 comments

Hey everyone,

This week I’ll be showing you how to create meshsmoothed text in 3dsMax. Ordinarily, this is difficult to do because ordinary extruded text shapes create very complex polygons on the top and bottom of each letter. Thus, turbosmooth has a difficult time handling the smoothing operation. Since chamfering the edges along each 3d letter doesn’t always work, we’ll be using the quadrilateral tessellation in the ProBoolean object in order to resolve those pesky mesh structure problems!

Circular Holes

Written August 24th, 2009
Categories: Modeling, Videos
14 comments

Hey all!

This is another one of those topics where I’m surprised I haven’t covered it yet. I’ll be showing you how to cut perfectly circular holes (or perfectly ‘any-shaped’ holes) into a turbosmoothed mesh. It’s less focused on keeping tight geometry, and more focused on the basic idea.

We start by taking a spline shape (in this case a circle) and using the cut tool and snaps toggle (with ‘vertex’ enabled) and we cut the circular hole into the target polygon. Once that’s done, it’s up to you what you want to do with the shape!

P.S. I’m stoked by all the comments people are leaving! Thanks for letting me know what you think, and I’m open to more ideas for Monday Movies!

Meshsmooth Seams

Written July 28th, 2009
Categories: Modeling, Videos
4 comments

Adding creases and seams to your inorganic models doesn’t have to be hard. In this Monday Movie, I’ll be showing you how to create sharp or smooth creases in your meshsmoothed models using the extrude edge tool. This is the technique I used to create the lines in my Sofa Speed Model.

Modeling Core – Part 4

Written December 30th, 2008
Categories: Modeling, Videos
No Comments »

Hey Everyone!

This week’s Monday Movie is part 4 of 4. I’m hoping to make one movie each week discussing what I think are the core modeling methods: primitives modeling, Boolean modeling, spline modeling, and poly Modeling. I’m very sorry this movie was delayed; the holidays snuck up on me, and then my display adapter went nuts literally as I was about to upload the video file.

In this video I’m talking about how you can create fully arbitrary meshes using the turbosmooth modifier. Remember that this is just an introduction to a branch of poly modeling, so it shouldn’t be taken as the full enumeration of all possibilities. I go over a few of the most important methods of mesh control; adding edges, chamfering, discontinuous mesh flow, and creasing.