nurbs torso

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Tutorial: Nurbs Torso By A aron Lee  In this Tutorial I am going to walk you through the processes involved in making a detailed nurbs male torso. A General understanding of the Max Interface ( 3.x ) is not necessary because I am going to walk you through this tutorial in a Very Step-By-Step Manner. By the end of this Tutorial you should be pretty comfortable with the Nurbs tool... although to fully understand this powerful tool will take far more than one or two tutorials. There are many methods of modeling with Nurbs but the best way to discovering the secrets of nurbs is to learn the fundamentals, and then just experiment on your own. On that note... let's get on with the show. First off open up Max if it's not already open and if it is already open then start up a fresh project by clicking "File" and then choosing "Reset". This does simply what it says, it resets all of the settings in max back to there default state. This is a quick way to get a fresh start on a project if you have already got Max opened and want to start something completely new. So at this point you should have a blank Max Session opened up. The first thing that you want to do is get a good mental picture of  what it is you want to create. In this case it is the Male Torso. So the first step to seeing the torso in 3 Dimensions is to see it in 2 Dimensions. By this I mean we are going to sketch out the foundation of our object. Some people prefer using paper and pen to get a good visual to work with. And then scanning the image into there computer and setting it up as a background reference picture in one of the view ports. In some instances that would be the best way to go about it. But in this case we are simply going to use a bit of imagination... So first off we are going to visualize the torso from a frontal view. So we will be making the side contours of the Male Torso. But before we can even do this we need to go to the create panel and open up ourNu rbs Tool Box...

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Page 1: Nurbs Torso

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Tutorial: Nurbs Torso By Aaron Lee

 

In this Tutorial I am going to walk you through the processes involved in making a detailed nurbs male torso. A Generalunderstanding of the Max Interface ( 3.x ) is not necessary because I am going to walk you through this tutorial in a VeryStep-By-Step Manner. By the end of this Tutorial you should be pretty comfortable with the Nurbs tool... although to fullyunderstand this powerful tool will take far more than one or two tutorials. There are many methods of modeling with Nurbs b

the best way to discovering the secrets of nurbs is to learn the fundamentals, and then just experiment on your own. On thanote... let's get on with the show.

First off open up Max if it's not already open and if it is already open then start up a fresh project by clicking "File" and thenchoosing "Reset". This does simply what it says, it resets all of the settings in max back to there default state. This is a quickway to get a fresh start on a project if you have already got Max opened and want to start something completely new. So atthis point you should have a blank Max Session opened up. The first thing that you want to do is get a good mental picture owhat it is you want to create. In this case it is the Male Torso. So the first step to seeing the torso in 3 Dimensions is to see in 2 Dimensions. By this I mean we are going to sketch out the foundation of our object. Some people prefer using paper anpen to get a good visual to work with. And then scanning the image into there computer and setting it up as a backgroundreference picture in one of the view ports. In some instances that would be the best way to go about it. But in this case we asimply going to use a bit of imagination... So first off we are going to visualize the torso from a frontal view. So we will bemaking the side contours of the Male Torso. But before we can even do this we need to go to the create panel and open up

ourNurbs Tool Box...

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 To do this we need to click on the "Create" tab, which looks like an arrow pointing to a star... this is where most of the toolsneeded to create anything in Max are found. Next, click on the shapes button, which displays a square a triangle and a circleone on top of the other. and finally click the text box and scroll to NURBS Curves. This is where you will go whenever youwant to "Create" a NURBS Curve. There are two types of Nurbs Curves used in Max, Point Curves and CV Curves. We will

be using Point Curves so click on "Point Curve". Now whenever you move your pointer into a view port it turns into a crosshair. Whenever this occurs it means that you are going to create something. In this case you are going to make your firstreference lines for our Torso. Remember that we are going to make this Torso 2D before we make it 3D. So we are going todraw the lines for the side of the body in the front view port. Like so...

Notice that i made my Start (top) and finish (bottom) points on the darker black line in the middle of the view port. This isbecause this line indicates an absolute 0,X coordinates in 3D Space, and having done this will come in very handy later on.Other than the start and finish points, I used 17 Points to complete the side Nurbs Reference Line. This many points is notnecessary. But it does allow a greater degree of control over the end models shape. Keep in mind though, the more points oa line, the more effort it will take to keep the surface looking smooth. And a Nurbs Rule of Thumb which you should ALWAYremember is that "it only takes 3 points to curve a line." This simply means, keep things simple. only use points where youneed them. Often if i want a smooth surface a will get rid of allot of points. But for the modeling of this torso I choose to use

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more points than usual because i wanted a greater deal of detail in this model. Now, remember how i pointed out theimportance of having the start and finish points on the Darker Black line in the middle of the View port ( 0, X) Well the reasonis that every object has a pivot point, and when we created this object the pivot point was created in the middle of the objectand we are going to want the pivot point of this first curve to be directly in between the start and finish points of our curve...which should also be lined directly above and below one another. We are doing this because we want our model to rotatearound these points... if you were to rotate the curve right now you would find that it rotates around it's center. To fix this weneed to go into the Hierarchy Tab...

 This Tab is located Two Tabs over from the create tab, it's symbol is One Big box with Three little boxes branching off fromAfter clicking this tab click the Pivot button, because we are adjusting an objects pivot point. And finally, first making sure thyou have selected your line, click on the "Affect Pivot Only" button. Because.... we only want to effect the pivot point of theobject. After you click this button you should notice that the object obtains another X,Y,Z transform Gizmo (this is whatcontrols the movement of any given object). What you are going to do now is Click on the "Select and Move" button. Thisbutton looks like Four arrows pointing in different directions.

After you click on it, right click on it and a box should open up. This is where you make manual numerical adjustments to theposition of any given object. It is used for very precise adjustments made to an objects location. In this case we want to adjuthe location of the transform gizmo (the pivot point of the line). So where do we want the Transform gizmo to be? We want ito be directly on top of that black line that runs up and down the front view port. To do this all you have to do is right click onthe X "Spinner" (the up and down arrows located right next to the numbers in the Absolute World coordinates box) next to thX Coordinates.

 You will find that if you right click on any "Spinner" in max, that the number is reduced to zero, or the relative neutral state fothe spinner being adjusted (as with colors 0 would indicate an absolute black... being that there are no negative values incolor adjustment. However, right clicking on a color spinner DOES reduce it's value to 0.) Now... having right clicked theAbsolute X Spinner you should notice that the position of the pivot transform gizmo has moved from the center of the line topoint in-between the top and bottom (start and finish) points on the Nurbs Curve. Now Click again on the Affect Pivot Onlybutton located in the Hierarchy Panel to turn it off. Now you have just adjusted the pivot point of the nurbs curve. Why did w

 just move it's pivot point though? Because we want to make copies of this line, but we want the first and last points on the

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curves that we create to remain in the same exact position. Before we go on we have to make sure that the first and lastcurve points ARE actually on absolute 0,X... SO..... click on the Modify Tab... located in-between the Create Tab and theHierarchy Tab. Here is where you will do all of your Nurbs Editing. In the Modifier Stack Click on the Sub Object Level Butto

And Choose in the Roll out box "Point". Now you will see that all of the points on your Nurbs Curve are selectable andmovable. What we need to do now is move the first and last points to absolute world coordinates X-0 in the front view. So firselect the first Point (Top Point) and Follow the steps that you just used earlier to move the pivot point of the curve toabsolute zero. The same procedure will be used to move these two points to absolute zero. These points must be movedindividually to Absolute 0, X because selecting multiple points will create a group pivot point that is not local to each point.Having done this click "Sub Object" again to get out of the sub object editing mode. Now it is time to make our next curve, brather than creating it from scratch, as we did our first curve. We are going to rotate and copy this curve 90 Degrees so thatstands at a right angle to the side curve. So in order to rotate a duplicate copy of this curve we need to hit the "Select andRotate" button located right next to the "Select and Move" button.

What your going to do now is create a copy of this curve by clicking on the vertical axis control in the front view and dragginup in the front view port while holding down the SHIFT key on your keyboard. Any object that you move while holding downthe shift key will automatically be duplicated. When you let go of the duplicate object being rotated a Box should appearasking what sort of object the duplicate should be (reference, instance, copy). We will be making a duplicate copy of ourNurbs Curve, so when the box appears you should choose "Copy" as the Clone Type.

So the steps are... (1) Hold Down Shift (2) Click and drag up on the Y-axis in the FrontView port. We want to Rotate thecloned Nurbs Curve 90 Degrees, so watch the bottom of your screen as the numbers indicate how much you are rotating thduplicate shape.

Now you should have two identical Nurbs Shapes standing perpendicular to eachother, that is to say... if you look in the TOview port you should see two lines that meet at a point forming a right angle.

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What we have here is the Profile Shapes of our torso. Or that is what we WILL have. Remember when you made the curvefor the left side of the torso in the Front View. Now we need to make the curves for the front of the torso in the Side View( Left or Right ). So what you need to do is take that duplicate copy that we just barely made and turn it from this.

 To this...

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In order to do this you need to go to the sub-object level for the front profile spline andclick Point as the sub-object level. From here you can start adjusting the points of the nurbs shape so that it looks more likethe front of the torso that you want to create. This is the general method used for modeling with 3D Software. Now... havingboth the side and front profiles created, all that is left is the back profile. So we need to leave the Sub-Object level for thefront spline so that we can duplicate the front profile as a whole. Since the shape we are modeling is going to be directlybehind the shape that we just modeled (front profile/back profile) we can use a different method to get a duplicate copy of thfront profile to represent the back profile. What we are going to use is the Mirror Tool...

So what we are going to do is make a duplicate of the front spline by mirroring it over to the other side of the "Darker Line"running up and down the Right view port. (the mirror tool is also used to mirror over the right half of the torso once you havefinished making the left half.) So select the front profile shape and click the mirror tool located on the top Tool Bar. When yoclick this button a window will open asking you to make certain choices regarding the properties of the mirrored object...

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Choose to make a Copy in the Clone Selection Area. A good point to remember is that whenever you mirror an object orshape, it will always be mirrored at it's pivot point... so since we adjusted the pivot point of our curves, our mirrored shapesfirst and last points will not move. So after you have choose copy as the mirror type and mirrored the object on the correctaxis so as to have the shape reflect the front profile of our torso you can hit "OK" to finalize the process. Now you shouldhave something looking similar to this...

And once again we want to adjust this nurbs shape. So, after making sure that you have the back nurb shape selected youwill want to go into the Sub-Object selection Point level to edit the shape point by point. Keep in mind that to model anythingtakes a great deal of patiance. Remember that you will most likely end up tweeking different points later on in the process. S

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we are creating the blueprints for our torso, but not the torso itself quite yet. This is what I came up with for the back half of the torso...

Now to give you a bit more of an understanding of where I'm taking you with this copying and mirroring and tweakingbusiness, we are going to jump ahead quite a few steps. This way you will have a glimps of what we are trying to achieve bymaking all of these profile curves. So... what you are going to do is first select the front spline. Now I want you to notice a littbox bellow the Sub-Object Button, this little box is located in the "General" Rollout and it is called the "Nurbs Creation

 Toolbox"...

Click on it... and a window should open up (if it isn't already opened). Inside this window is the power to do all kinds of amazing things with nurbs. What we are going to do is called a U-Loft. This is the process of connecting nurbs curves withflexible surfaces. It's kind of like surface modeling with splines in a way. You will find the U-Loft button near the bottom righthand corner of the box....

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We are going to create our first U-Loft surface... again simply so that you have an idea of what we are trying to do here(creating all these profile curves). So click on the U-Loft button. When you do this you will notice that the U Loft Curves

Rollout opens directly under the "Sub-Object" button. This rollout will control many of the properties of the U-Loft Surfacewhile you are making it. It will tell you what curves are Lofted and in what order as well as controlling a few other surfaceparameters. But the first thing you have to do is select where you want your U Loft surface to start. It will start on whatevercurve you click on first, and will follow the path of curves that you click on. Start out by clicking on the front profile curve.

 You'll notice that once you click on this curve the dialogue box tells you that you have selected a starting curve by punchingin the name of the curve you just selected at the top of the list, and if you go on and select the side curve, and then last, theback curve you will notice that not only are there names punched into the dialogue box but a surface has appearedinbetween the curves... This is the result of the U-Loft. You will notice that the surface follows the shape of the curves thatyou made earlier. But you will also notice that the surface does not look to much like a torso, other than from the front andside view... and even still it only roughly holds the shape of a torso. This is because the curves control the shape of thesurface. So, the more curves you have the more control you have over the shape of the surface. But remember, with morecontrol comes more responsability. So don't get over your head with curves (it only takes 3 points to curve a line). So click thundo button...

located on the top of your screen or hit "Edit" Undo until you are back to the time before you Performed the U-Loft. (Rightclicking on the undo button will give you a history of the actions performed and allow you to undo by highlighting the steps afar back as you wish.) Basically from this point you are going to create more and more profile curves from the ones that youhave already created. I suggest rotating the reference curves in incriments of about 15 degrees however you may need moror less curves depending on the detail level required in the given area (ex. for a detailed belly button you would need to rotain increments of possibly as low as 2 degrees) A Large deal of this tweeking is using your minds eye and continually askingyourself if this is what a torso would look like from this angle. When I had finished this piece I had used a total of 11 curves fthe left side of the torso. I felt that 11 was necessary to get the level of detail I wanted for this piece. You might end up usingless or more, depending on what look your trying to get. Keep in mind also that along a curve sometimes it is not necassaryto have a control point, so you may end up deleting control points at certain areas. This is also a good way to keep a piece

your torso looking smooth, as too many control points can be hard to maintain at times and cause a greater deal of stressthan necesarry. This is a screen shot of my viewports once i had finished Clone Rotating the Reference Curves, TweekingPoints and U-Lofting...

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From this point what you need to do is (making sure your out of the Sub-Selection Levels) mirror the right side of the torso

and create the final loft. So right click in the front view port to activate that viewport as the viewport that you want to work in,and click on mirror button. Make sure that the Clone Object type is a Copy and that you are mirroring on the proper axis sothat both halfs stand side by side in the front view port. Once this is done you need to go to the surface sub-selection level oeach object and delete click on the surface of the object and press delete. We are doing this because although both halfshave a surface.. they arent joined in the middle. Also when you mirrored the left half over to the right you also mirrored frontand back curves over (the ones that you made in the very beginning). These are not necesarry because they lied directly onthe "Darker Line" running up and down the front view port they didn't move when you mirrored them. So there is now oneextra front profile curve and one extra back profile curve. You need to go into the sub-object curve level and delete these tw

extra lines. Now we're ready to make our final loft. So go to your nurbs tool box... and click U-Loft... What I did to lothe lines, since it can be pretty confusing what lines your lofting where when you have soo many lines.. I

rotated the front view a little bit and zoomed in alot so that i could see where all of thepoints merge at the top of the torso... When you rotate the any non perspective view (front left top...) it turns into a user viewEditing in the user view is better than editing in the perspective view when it comes to zooming in close on an object becausit allows a virtually unlimited zoom level without loosing sight of the object, but with the perspective view it is very easy tozoom past an objet. Also once you do rotate the front view you might want to get rid of the grid. To do this you need to right-click on the word USER in the top left corner of the user viewport, and uncheck "show grid" by clicking on it. Now you can dyour U-Lofting here in the user view and you should be able to keep track of your lofting...

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As you reach your final curve that you need to loft you will notice that it wont allow you to connect the last and first curve. This because you use a special feature to close the loft. Make sure that you have lofted every curve and not skipped any. Oncyou have dont this, right click in the viewport and go over to the U-Loft Rollout below the Sub-Selection rollout and scroll

down until you see and when you see it... check it. Once you check it the gap in the loftshould close and you can kick back and relax for a while because you have just barely finished the process of creating thenurbs torso... All that is left is to add the textures, lighting and whatever else you want :-)

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