- [Explainer] 3DS Max is a generic 3D program
that can really do anything in 3D,
including for example, motion graphics.
It's really common that you might want to take some logo
or some art that was done
in another program and convert that from 2D
to 3D in max and a common situation would be
some graphic artist has created some artwork
in Adobe illustrator, and you want to take that artwork
into 3D and maybe animate it or something.
Couple things to know about that.
Number 1, you can only load Adobe illustrator documents
that are version 8 or earlier.
Okay?
So the current version
of Adobe illustrator.ai file is not supported.
That means you'll need to save
out of illustrator as a version 8 or earlier.
And second, we can only deal with paths.
We're not going to be able to import, for example
fills or editable type into max it has to be paths.
So, if you've got editable typing your illustrator document
you'll need to convert it to outlines, all right?
So I've done all that already for a sample document.
So let's bring that in.
Go to the file menu and choose import,
import.
And once again, this is for foreign
or non-native file formats
such as the Adobe illustrator.ai.
And we should be taken directly
to our current projects import folder
and in the exercise files, here's my document.
O4_O6_illustrator_v8.ai
meaning it's Adobe illustrator version 8.
Select that, and click open.
We get a dialogue.
Do we want to merge
into the current scene or replace the current scene?
I want to merge
so I don't lose my current grid and unit settings.
So just leave it at merge and click okay
we're also prompted
whether we want to import all of these paths
as a single object or a bunch of separate paths.
And depending upon what you're doing
you may want to choose single or multiple objects.
In this case, I'm going to make a bevelled 3D Logo
and it's just going to operate as a single unit.
So I'll leave the import shapes as option
at single object and click okay.
Now that's imported into max
and it's a little bit off the screen here.
So it's currently selected
so we can click to zoom, extends all selected,
take a look.
It's very small.
In fact, when we bring in that illustrator document
it will be imported at the same size it would be
on the printed page.
Okay, well, that's logical.
We've set up our illustrator document to create some logo
at a certain absolute size
in inches or centimeters or whatever.
And 3D max brings it in at that same size.
We can check on the size
of any selected object with a utility.
Let's take a look at that.
Here's a bonus for you.
If we go over to the command panel
there's a little ranch or span icon,
click on that it's utilities
and then we have a measure utility, click on that
and we'll see the dimensions of the selection.
So this thing is less
than 4 centimeters in this dimension.
All right.
So I want to scale this up and that's actually important
because I'm going to apply a modifier called bevel
and bevel actually will not work with an object
that's this small, it needs to be larger.
And additionally, I can't just scale the object up
in the usual way that won't help us.
So we actually have to scale all the individual sub-objects
up to a size that the bevel modifier can handle.
Okay.
So how do we do that?
Let's go to the modified panel
remember for an edible spline
we have different sub-object types.
We've got vertex, segment, and spline.
I want to scale all of these splines up
by a factor of a 100.
So let's go into spline sub-object mode,
drag a select and rectangle, maybe in the top viewport,
to make sure we select everything
and let's give it a go.
Let's try it.
Go ahead and grab the scale tool
and then click and drag in any viewport
to scale from the scale gizmos center
to scaling all three axes.
And what we see is each one
of those splines is scaling relative to its own center.
That's definitely not what we want.
So let's undo that with control Z.
Remember in a previous movie
we saw all about transform coordinate centers.
Here's where this comes in, really handy,
go up to the main toolbar
and we've got our fly out for transform coordinate centers,
click and hold that button
and choose the middle icon, which is use selection center
and now we can scale and maintain the relationship
of all of those splines relative to each other.
All right, I'm going to undo that control Z
because I want to just plug in a numeric value
and scale this up by a factor of a 100.
Unfortunately in sub-object mode
we can't actually use the transform type
in area at the bottom of the screen here
but we can use the transform type in dialogue
and that's accessed
by right clicking on the transform tool.
Right click on the select and uniform scale button
in the scale transform type in dialogue
under offset world
let's give this a value of 10000%
which is of course, equivalent to 100 times.
So press enter,
and now it's a 100 times larger than it was.
We can close this dialogue
exit out of spline sub-object mode
with the object still selected.
Once again, we can click to zoom extends all selected
and we can check the scale of this thing
by going back to our utilities panel
the measure utility is still active
and now it's 377 centimeters in X.
All right, just to finish this up
I'm going to just rotate and scale this into position
I'll grab the rotate tool.
We'll scale the object, 90 degrees in X, just type 90
have the move tool
and just position that up above the ground plane.
And we can Tumblr orbit
with alt to middle mouse and take a look.
Okay.
So that is how to import an illustrator document
and set it up so that you can bevel it
or create a 3D surface from that illustrator file.