- [Instructor] In this chapter,
we'll look at spline modeling.
Spline is just a fancy word for line or curved line.
There are four types of splines in 3DS Max
and to create them, we'll use the create panel.
Let's go over to the create panel
and from the category list here,
the icons, we'll choose shapes.
In 3DS Max, the word shape refers to any curve based object.
Now the first category of splines is shape primitives,
such as a circle or a rectangle.
These are parametric objects with attributes
such as radius or length and width
and these are non-destructive similar to a 3D primitive
like a cube or a sphere.
We can go in and change their parameters
after we've created the spline primitive.
So for example, we could create a circle.
Click on circle, go over to the front view
and just click and drag to create a circle and that's done.
Or maybe I'll go into the top view,
click and drag, create another circle
and notice that those two circles are aligned differently.
I should tell you that the alignment
or the orientation of a new primitive is going to be determined
by the view port in which you create that object.
And that applies to all sorts of primitives,
not just spline primitives, but anything including a camera
or light or whatever.
The viewport in which you create something actually matters.
Okay, so I could create another circle here
in the perspective view
and that's going to behave just the same
as if I created in the top view.
The new primitive will be aligned
with the X, Y plane of the world.
I can right click and exit out of that
and click to deselect.
And you'll notice that they're different colors.
That's because by default in Max,
any new primitive will have a random color assigned
unless it's inheriting the display attributes
from its enclosing layer, but I've chosen not to do that.
So in my preferences, I don't have by layer
for all new objects enabled.
Okay, so let's delete these.
I'll drag a selection rectangle and press delete
and we could create another primitive type
such as a rectangle.
Click and drag in the front view
and we'll get a rectangle oriented with a front view.
Click and drag in the perspective view
and we'll get a rectangle oriented with that view.
Right click to exit creation mode.
If we go to the modify panel,
we'll see that we have parameters for these rectangles
and we can go ahead and change those up.
And we even have things like a corner radius
so we can get a rounded rectangle.
Okay, pretty cool.
So I'll select those and delete once again
and go back to the create panel.
Let's talk about lines, also known as editable splines.
These are bezier curves.
You might be familiar with a bezier curve
from a program like Illustrator.
Bezier curves are really ubiquitous
in all 3D graphics programs
and that's because they're very easy to use.
They have control points and tangent handles
that we can move around
and in 3DS Max, that's why they're called editable.
The editable spline object is also known simply as a line.
And all kinds of spline objects including those primitives
can be converted to editable spline.
So to create an editable spline,
we'll click on the line button.
And the result that we get in our view port
is going to depend upon what exactly we do with the mouse.
So we can either click or we can click and drag.
If we click, we'll create what are known as corner points
and when we're done creating corner points,
we can right click and we'll exit out of line creation.
We'll talk about how to edit spline curves in another movie
but for now, let's just talk about creating them.
Okay, I'll delete that with the delete key.
If I click and drag, let's say I go up here
and click and hold the mouse button and drag,
I can create a bezier curve point or a bezier curve vertex.
And I can just go over here,
click and drag and hold the mouse button down
to determine that curvature.
Maybe go over here and if I just do a single click,
then I'll create a corner point.
All right, if I'm done creating points,
I can right click and there's my line.
Okay, I can right click again to exit out of line creation.
And I'll delete that as well
with the delete key on the keyboard.
A variation on the editable spline is a freehand spline.
Down here, we'll see freehand.
As the name indicates,
we can draw spline curves very quickly with mouse strokes.
Let's do that.
I'll click on free hand and then click and drag
and I can create a spline curve with my mouse.
And I've just got one there.
I can click again, create another one, create another one,
and I can create a little happy smiley face there.
So that's freehand splines.
I can right click to exit out of that tool.
We can always edit these
just like we can with ordinary splines.
If you want to learn more about freehand splines,
I covered that in my weekly series,
3ds Max: Tips, Tricks and Techniques.
All right, I'll drag a selection rectangle around all those
and once again, press delete.
Finally, 3DS Max has nurbs.
That's an acronym standing for
non-uniform rational basis splines.
That's kind of an antique workflow.
We're not going to be covering that in this version
of 3DS Max essential training.
Nurbs is still a very powerful workflow,
especially in mechanical engineering and product design,
but in 3DS Max, you're probably going to want to stay
with the splines or bezier curves
because they are much easier to work with.
And they also generally give better results
than nurbs in Max
and the spline curves are still under active development.
If you want to work with nurbs,
you'll need to go into the pull down list here
that currently says splines
and you can choose nurbs curves
and from there you can choose to create a point curve
or a CV curve.
We can click to create a nurbs curve.
All right, right click to exit.
Okay, we're not really going to look at nurbs in this course
but just wanted to show you that they were there.
All right, so those are the four different types
of curves in Max.
We got primitives,
bezier curves, also known as editable splines,
free hand curves and nurbs.