Hey guys
Today I'm going to be going over the process that is the creation of my Shark in 3DS MAX. From thought bubble to textured model we will explore the processes required to achieve such a thing.
Here is the finished render:
One of the first thing you have to realise when creating this model is, just like creating a human character, you only craft half of the model then use a mirror modifier to add in the other half, then finish it off with a lovely mesh smooth, which we will cover much close to the end of this progressive blog post.
The only other thing I want to make apparent to you before this blog post begins on the actual topic stated, is that it is incredibly straight forward to create. It's all from one cylinder primitive and is just a series of extrusions with a chamfer here and there (up until the UVW and texturing process, of course.)
1. Preparing to Model
Before you begin the modelling process you want to have something to reference your model towards. In any real modelling situation, you will never be without a reference.
Whether it's industry work where you will have concepts and references drawn by dedicated artists, mod work where you will still have art drawn by yourself or other team members, or just portfolio work in which you will still want to acquire some reference images or create your own (for maximum quality, because there's no point putting in a dreadful looking model into your portfolio.)
I have found a reference and if you want to keep as close to my final outcome as possible you may want to use it, otherwise feel free to use your own. I can imagine any fish modelling process is extremely similar to this so take anything I tell you with a grain of salt if you're not following it to the tee.
I didn't draw this reference, I found it on the internet somewhere. I've provided it simply for your own personal use.
Now that you've acquired that image, it's not a simple case of having it in Windows Picture Viewer and skipping between windows and crafting your shark in accordance to the image by eye. We're going to actually put it into 3DS MAX and craft the shark in exact scale to the image, which doesn't necessarily have to determine the final scale of your shark but makes sure each part of it is in proportion with the rest of your model.
So the first part in this tutorial, that actually requires some work in 3DS MAX, is setting up a plane for your image to sit on.
Under 'Standard Primitives' object types, select the plane button. Then draw out a plane in the top view of 3DS MAX, then rotate it 90 degrees. Use the other view ports to make sure it's rotated accurately, and make sure you know the directory your reference picture is saved in.
You need to set up your image in the material editor so you can apply it to your plane:
Once you've set up the image as a diffuse on a material slot, you can drag it onto the plane to apply it to the primitive.
And that it's, you've got your reference image on a plane now, and you're going to be relying on it heavily during the creation of the shark. There's going to be a lot of selection that spans across the plane and the shark itself, so it needs to be frozen so it can't be selected accidentally.
Select the plane, and right click it then go to Object Properties. On the left hand side, under the interactivity sub-section, tick the Freeze box. If you want to unfreeze it in the future, you can right click on the gray background in the 3D port and click unfreeze all.
Now that's done, there's nothing left to do for setting up your plane and reference image so now it's time to move on to some actual modelling.
2. Beginning the Modelling Process
Remember how I mentioned at the beginning that the shark is one primitive? We're going to put that into practice now. Under the standard primitives object selection, select cylinder and draw one out in the top view.
Rotate it on it's side in the front view so it's in line with the beginning of the tail of the reference image. Scale the cylinder sideways until the opposite side is in line with the beginning of the shark's nose/face, then scale it vertically until it's in line with the shark's main body, excluding the fins, see below for clarity.
Once you've got that lined up, you need to set up the model so you can see through it and be comparing the primitive to your reference image throughout the modelling. To do that, select the cylinder and right click, then go to object properties. Simply click See Through which is just underneath the Freeze option that we used for the plane earlier. This will make it a lot easier to craft the primitive around the actual reference image.
Right click the primitive again and turn it into an editable poly.
This will allow us to modify and edit further our primitive, with methods such as extrusions and applying modifiers. A very vital step in the creation of our shark.
Now we need to start getting the basic shape of our shark. Back on the right hand side under the Selection heading, select vertex selection and select, in the front view, all the vertex points on the left hand side of shark. Then, scale them down until they're more in line with the body of the shark. If they aren't quite scaling into line, adjust the position of the shark as a whole then continue to scale the vertex points until they're as in line as possible. Future adjustments are possible so don't fret too much if you can't get it completely accurate.
Continue to do this for the rest of the model, but exclude the fins as they will be created with extrusions.
Delete half of the shark in the top view, as we will mirror it later and this will make it easier to create the fins from extrusions later.
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