Well if ya can't afford it...

[leafer]

building it in max. :D Actually, I'm building this because it has variety of shapes which is a good learning experience. Just discovered spline cage and it's pretty wicked at building complex shapes. Learning by trail and error is a pain in the ... but hopefully the experience gained will have me flying through my model. :D

[NineLine]

Very cool, I will have to look at spline cage... nice work.

[leafer]

It's incredible for working on complex shapes. I'm a week into this spline cage and as you can see, the topology is a little busy and unevenly distributed. I think the key to cleaner topology is to plan ahead in your mind.

[NineLine]

It's incredible for working on complex shapes. I'm a week into this spline cage and as you can see, the topology is a little busy and unevenly distributed. I think the key to cleaner topology is to plan ahead in your mind.

 

Any tutorials you can recommend?

[leafer]

Yip. If you're starting out then check out CG tuts as they have excellent tutorials and a lot of them are free. They actually take the time and explain every single step as well as things that could and often go wrong when doing 3d modeling. Basically things I expected to get charged for as I dig deeper into max.

 

Check this out if you're a beginner. A lot of tuts the instructors always seem to skip the most important bit that have you punching your own nuts out of frustration. It's the first tut I watched and he covered all the techniques that you can use to make complex, hardsurface modeling.

 

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3d-studio-max/model-a-high-poly-rpg-rocket-launcher-in-3ds-max-day-1/

 

If you're looking for spline cage tutorials I don't have any. Basically you build the cage with splines using 'refine connect' then 'fuse' to connect the vertices to form the shape of your model. Sp make sure you hotkey those two command because you'll be using them through out. When you're satisfied with your cage then use surface modifier to apply surface to it. Here is where the headache starts by the way. I basically spent a week pulling my hair and elbowing myself just cause I was overwhelmed by frustration. But I think it's to be expected and in fact, trial and error is the best way to learn 3ds max if you can't afford to good tutorials.

 

Fire away your question if you have any. I'm a noob but I'll try to help other noob. Nothing like watching noob helping another noob. :D

Edited June 14, 2013 by leafer

[NineLine]

I've been to that website a few times :)

 

I'll mess with the spline cage sometimes, as a self taught hack I am always interested in learning a new way to do things :)