** NOObie's... all appz all questions **

This is here now b/c there are so many people labelling their own threads as newbie threads then they can post here. There are a lot of people who like to engage in conversations of this type so to keep the forum organized all such threads must go here or they're deleted.

 

Thanks for the Sticky ZOO!!!

I've been working w/version 5 of MAX recently.
And I've gotten quite decent at making my ships "fly"
in any means or motion I need to.

Now to my question:

I've did the online tutorials on basic explosions and such,
AND I am asking for your opinion(s) on this topic:

How Exactly do you guys do explosions as it pertains to the output video?
**** What is he talking about****
OK: Example of what I'm trying...

Scene: The good old Basic Tie vs. XWing
Xwing shoots at tie and misses, (I'll do this w/AE using Durbpoisn's method)

seconds later... Xwing shoots and... and... and..

THe TIE FIGHTER needs to blow to bits here.
the Xwing continuse on toward next (objective)

Now, do you guys jus take the Tie and turn him invisible, OR actually blow up the ship W/MAX OR do you at the EXACT moment of impact, take the TIE off screen so as the viewer "thinks" the Tie
exploded? I'm just needing some feedback on this matter, cause I'm trying to "see" what would be 1.easiest 2. best looking (believeable) 3. simplicity of this scene completion.

So please if you guys could comment, explain, you strategy, point me to a tutorial, OR Whatever, It would be gladly app'd. BECAUSE I'd really like to get this space battle animation project off the ground.
OR JUST PM ME, thanks!!!!!!!!!!! JBC

 

How do I exclude my mapped-with-starfield sphere of lightning and make it visible when rendering? I'm talking about 3ds max 7.

When I render, I cant see stars.. but in viewports I see them perfectly :S

 

I'm just starting to get into this 3d animation thing and i recentley downloaded the maya LE. I was hoping to use some of the excellent models off toff this sight but i oculdnt get any of the ones i downloaded to open in maya. I was wondering what kind of file i need to download so that i can use them in maya or do i need to switch programs so that i can use the models off this sight.

 

Card posted on 8/2/05 1:30pm

---

I'm just starting to get into this 3d animation thing and i recentley downloaded the maya LE. I was hoping to use some of the excellent models off toff this sight but i oculdnt get any of the ones i downloaded to open in maya. I was wondering what kind of file i need to download so that i can use them in maya or do i need to switch programs so that i can use the models off this sight.
[hr][/blockquote]
Maya [i]full version[/i] can import those formats. The demo can't. You'd need to hunt down files in the proper format (whatever that is, you can find out by going to "File>Open" and seeing what kind of file it's looking for).

 

Small, easy question here: where is the 'create a path' button?


To JimBobCarl:
I mostly use the Bomb (Create > Space Warps > Geometric/Deformable > Bomb) to blow up ships.
You only have to drag in a viewport to create this bomb. Then click the 'Bind to Spacewarp' button (probably 5th from the left in the top bar) and click&drag from your bomb to the ship. You can also set the frame on which it should explode, the strength and so on.
I don't know if the bomb is present in Max 5 though...

 

You don't "create paths." What you do is create splines which can be interpreted as paths. Thus, when you want to use a Path Constraint, select a spline you created and that will act as the path.

 

Allright, thanks man.

 

Hey guys,

I'm more of an After Effects man, so any guys over on the fanfilm forum might have seen me hanging around there, but i've kinda taken an interest in 3d modelling for a while now.

My question: is there any specific tutorials handy on getting a relative newcomer to 3d modelling started on modelling a person, at the moment i'm leaning towards Maya as my app but i'm open on better suggestions if there are any.

 

You can lean towards maya, but in my opinion, you should use Blender3d , because it's free, and has just as much 3d modelling capability as maya, which costs about a couple $k.

For a tutuorial, I found one not recently here or here, for blender, but I'n not sure exactly which page it was on. That site has a lot of blender tuts, by the way... From a-z.
Try there.
Also tuts are at blenderwars.com

 

In 3d Studio max ive created a background but when the camera moves the background stays static so it looks like everything else is moving anyone have a way to fix this?

 

If you're working with an environment background try mapping it to a geosphere or similar object. That might take care of it.

Good luck!

 

Well, I wanted to animate the battledroid from SciFi3D.com, it already has a biped. Now I've read somewhere that you have to save a .bip file for the animation, then import that into the biped from the battledroid. That works, but the mesh stays still and the biped moves. I need to link the biped to the mesh so that the mesh is walking (in this example) too, like the biped.

So: can anyone tell me how to link a biped to a mesh?

 

Open up your Environment and Material Editor windows. Click and drag the background map in the Environment window to an empty pallet in the Material Editor window. Select copy as "instance" There will be a drop down menu that says "Screen". That setting is your problem. Change that setting to "Spherical Environment" or another to test the settings that creates.

 

can anyone help me with my problem? (above)

 

There are two methods for linking a mesh to a biped. One is linking, and that literally glues the object to the biped. Probably prefered for non-organic models.

For organic models, your best bet would be to add a "Physique" modifier to their stack, then apply the Biped. Then you go through the fun trouble of envelopes and affecting your mesh's individual vertecies to make sure that when the biped moves, all the model moves with it.

 

Do you perhaps have a tutorial for that?

I found this one before but I couldn't really understand it :
http://www.fanfilmfx.com/tutorials/cstudio/skinning/

 

im doing a video for my english project and all i want to do, is make a ship passby a planet, in a real quick 5 second shot, i have the planet, and the star field background but i have no idea how to use max as i just downloaded a trial version, so any help for a true newbie would be much appreciated

 

Thank you so much have one more problem now though when i do that it makes it very blurry any idea how to fix it?

Thanks again

 

First, gramar is your friend. Commas and periods that make sentances easier to read get you faster results.

Second, the blurriness of your background is proportionate to the resolution of your image map. The larger the image, the more detailed your background will be. If you have an image that you only need a small portion of, you can choose to tile and offset it to fit your camera moving needs.

 

Thank you, and sorry about the grammar.

 

hi
i stumbled on this site when looking for a picture of a droid carrier.
WOW!!!!
ive never seen such good models in all my life
ive only been "modelling" for just under a year and wondered how long you all have been modelling to get to such a high level of detail and how long does each model take you to make

 

You will find that the time it takes to create a model is proportinate to complexity of the model and inversely proportionate to the number and kinds of short cuts you know how to do.

 

I need some help finding lower rez models of tie fighters and x-wings (y-wings wouldn't hurt either) for an animation I am working on. I'm in an animation class, and there isn't really much time to do the modeling and the animating, so i'm trying to find something that looks good, but won't take years to render. please lemme know

 

Hi!
I'm new at this program, I have 3D Studio Max 8 Autodesk and i have some questions:
How do I change the background? (picture, color)
How do i set my camera so the renderer will follow it