Learn Animation 3d max tutorials

Welcome. This is a tutorial for creating buildings in 3ds max and was written in version 6. This does not mean it cannot be replicated in any other version, merely that screen shots may have changed slightly since then. All the functions should still be there (3ds max 6 and upwards - the latest version at this time is Autodesk (no longer discreet) 3ds max 8).

Contents

1. Creating the Floor
2. Building the Walls
3. Adding Windows and Doors
4. Adding Material to the Door (or Window)
5. Adding Windows
6. Adding Material to the Building and Floor
7. Animating the Door

In this tutorial, you will be shown you how to create a simple building. Using the tools covered in this tutorial, you will be able to create simple visualisations of structures and/or environments.

To get started, go to "file" and "reset". You should always reset max when starting a new project as just creating a new file leaves lots of options (one of which is the viewports) relevant to the last project you were working on.

You might know a simpler method for doing this, but I find, the following method works well. The measurements are in inches, so keep this in mind when you make the floor (as well as the other parts). Also, by making the floor in one piece, you can only add one material to the floor surface. If you want to apply different floor materials to different rooms, experiment with different shapes and place the floor pieces where you want them.

Make a box with height = 288, width = 196, height = 4 and length and width segments = 16, height = 1.

Convert to editable mesh: Click on the arrow on the task bar, select the box, right click, go to properties, slide right and convert to editable mesh.

You should see this image. Click on the little red dots. To centre the image in each of the viewports, click on the icon in the bottom right of the screen.

Take your cursor and draw a box around a selection of the dots in the top view, as follows. This section of the floor will be deleted, thus determining your floor plan.

Hit the "delete" button. You can also select other areas of the floor to delete to make your floor plan more interesting. Once you are satisfied with your floor plan, we have to click on the little red dots again. This is very important.

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Building the Walls

Go to "create", "AEC objects" and choose "walls".

The width of the walls defaults to 5 inches thick and 96 inches tall. These are standard dimensions so leave it as is. You can change it in game environments to create more interesting spaces. In top view, select one of the corners of your building and draw the walls around the exterior of your floor plan. Click on each corner. You want to build the exterior walls in one controlled motion. Interior walls can be added later. I haven't found an "orthogonal" button so I just eyeball it to get the walls straight. Your drawing should look like this. Say "yes" to welding the walls and right click to complete the wall.

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Constructing the Doors

Again in the top view, draw the door and click three times (once for each of height, width and depth) and set the door dimensions to height = 80, width = 36 and depth = 5. Move the door into the wall where you want it. I'm going to rotate "perspective view" so the door is in the front of the building.

Now I'm going to add details to my door. I changed the horizontal panels to 3, vertical panels to 4 and changed PANEL type to glass. I left everything else the same, but you can play with the features such as double doors, et cetera when you are comfortable with the tutorial contents.

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Adding a Material to the Door

Press "M" for materials, choose "standard", go to "Mtl Library", click "open" and when a new window pops open, choose "AEC Templates".

...and then choose the following

A new window will ask if you want to discard old material and click "discard old material" and "ok". Apply the material.

Your perspective view should look like this. Now we need to apply materials to each of the door parts. I always choose the same material for front, back, frame and inner door.

To do this, click on "Front", go to "standard", go to "Mtl Library", go to "open" and another window opens. I'm going to make a wood door so scroll over to wood and double click.

You should see the following:

I'll use ash. Double click the material you want and then you need to return to the door template as follows:

I'm going to repeat the same steps with Back, Frame and Inner Door. Double click on the door part, choose the material and return to the door template.

Finally, we need to choose a material for the "inner bevel" (also known as the glass). For this part I will go to "Ray Traced 01" materials and choose "clear glass".

Now choose the door template and apply the material.

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Adding Windows

In the top view, we will add a couple of windows. I'm going to make one and clone it just because it's faster.

Go to "create", "AEC objects", and choose "casement window". You can try other windows. Draw the window in the top view and again click 3 times for the height, width and depth of the window. Then, go to the panel on the left to set the dimensions. I will make a small window to place on either side of the door: height = 70, width = 10 and depth = 5. Use the move tool to put the window in the wall where you want it, including adjusting vertical placement.

I'm going to apply the same material that I used in the door, but you can use the same process that we used in making a door material to make a window material. Finally, I'm going to clone the window and place a number of them around the building. To clone the window, hold down the "shift" key and use the move tool to move the new window. This should be done in the top view. A clone options box will open up, select "copy" and click "ok". I cloned a whole bunch of windows and then modified the width of some of them. This can be done by clicking on the "modifier" tool in the top right of the screen and changing the width or height of the window.

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Adding Materials to the Building

Similar to the way we added materials to the doors and windows, we can use an "AEC Template" material and then choose "wall template". This will give us options as to the interior and exterior material on the building. Feel free to take this route (same as door and window materials), however for the purposes of this tutorial, I will not repeat the process but rather will add a neutral material that will be applied to both interior and exterior of the walls. Press "M" for materials, select "standard", "Mtl Library" and "concrete". In this case I will use stucco.

To see how your building looks, click your curser in the perspective box and press "F9".

Now, I will add a material to the floor and finish up the details. I chose wood: Oak for the floors.

There are no simple roof templates in Max 6 but you can create a roof using a Boolean on simple, or extended, primitives. Ask me if you don't know what this means. For now, I will create a ceiling/flat roof. The easiest thing to do is clone the floor so select the floor, click shift and move the cloned floor to the ceiling. I chose a neutral material for the ceiling.

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Animating the Door

In the top view, select the door. Go to the modifier tool. The options are all in the right hand panel.

Click on the Auto Key on the bottom of your screen. The animation key-frames should highlight red. Drag the time slider from 0 to 100 frames. In the "parameters" box, change the "open" box to 90 degrees.

If you drag your time-slider back and forth between 0 and 100 the door should open and close. I'm going to add a some grass, a background and throw in a camera. If you want interior lighting, add an omni light and raise it to the height of about a foot below the ceiling. This is the result. I used an environment background rather than a gizmo to create the sky with the intention of keeping the file small.