Part 1: Modeling
the Nissan R390 GT in 3ds max 5
>> Section 3: Caging and Surfacing
So, now we are going to finally connect the splines, which
already form a visible "cage". At this stage we
don't really need a 100% accurate cage, it's just there to
give us a good starting opint. Adding and deleting edges will
be quite easy later.
Remember to keep the near vertices coincident in space for
the next steps: when you have all of them good splines layed
out, select them one by one, enter in vertex sub-object mode
(shortcut is "1" on the keyboard, very usefull)
and check that you have vertices at the intersections. Again
use vertex snap to make intersecting splines vertices coincident.
Again, this is quite important as later we will apply a surface
modifier which operates only on 3 and 4 sided closed splines.
Once you have double checked all of your vertices, it's finally
time to surface the splines.
First off, select one spline. Then click on "attach
multiple" and, from the panel that pops up choose "all".
Now you have 1 single object made of several splines (Fig.
6). For the last time, you have to be sure all (as
usual, don't be afraid if you miss one intersection o two,
you can always fix it in the next step) the intersecting splines
have coincident vertices at the intersecting points, so you
can proceed to the next step.
Add a "surface" modifier to your object, and lower
the "steps" to "0". A mesh will magically
pop up in place (no, it's not your finished car, you x**§|ç!!!)
(be sure to be in a shaded viewport, F3 on the keyboard, or
you won't notice any differences). Probably you will get some
holes here and there (at least, i always do!)(Fig.
7): this means that there's either a part with more
than 4 sides, or that some vertices are not in the same position.
In some cases it's obvious how to fix a hole (just go in back
to your spline in the modifier stack and then in vertex mode,
snap-move the incriminated vertex to the right position and
voilà, a face is created). In other situations it can
get complicated and time consuming (especially if the hole
is caused by having more than 4 edges for a polygon). If you
cannot fix it now, once again you are lucky so don't worry,
just try to keep the holes to a reasonable number, we will
cap them in the next
section!
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