Escalight - 3ds Max tutorial, Photoshop, Flash, V-Ray, Blender, Free 3D models, etc

by Didik Wijaya
This tutorial needs you to understand basic use of 3dsmax and Photoshop.

Blueprint in 3D modeling is actually a reference image. With blueprint, we can model an object more easily, because we only need to follow the shape in image. In this article, I will describe several tips to use blueprint. After you read this article, you will be able to use blueprint more efficiently.

1. First, we need to have blueprint images. There are a lot of sites that give blueprints fro free. You can go to our reference link list here. Basically you need 3 images like image below; for front, side and top reference. Sometimes, one or two images is enough, depends on object you want to create. Sometimes you need to crop or resize to match their size. Usually I use gray images. You should avoid color image, especially image with red, white, yellow and green color. Why? For example, if you select an object, it will turn white. Default Gizmo is consist of yellow and green. Same color can be confusing. In Photoshop you can desaturate color images (Image>Adjustment>Desaturate), and change its brightness with Levels (Images>Desaturate>Levels). For this exercise, just right click 3 images below and save.

ah64_top.gif

ah64_side.gif

ah64_front.gif

2. After you have all three images above. Open all of them in Photoshop. Check their size (Image>Image Size). Top image is 430x288 in size, side image is 430x125, and front image is 288x125.

3. Open 3dsmax. Create 3 planes in viewport. Each in Top, Front and Left viewport. Modify each plane's length and width to match blueprint image size. It's enough to use 1 segment for Length and Width. Then, position them like image below. Use alignment if necessary. Note: You can use another size, as long as their aspect ratio is the same. For example, in Photoshop you see 430x288 pixel. Then in 3dsmax, you can use 43x28.8 plane size.

4. Next step, you need to apply material to all planes. Open Material Editor (press M in keyboard). Select one of sample slot. Name it as you wish, for example 'ah64_top'. Click and drag this sample slot to to the biggest plane in viewport to apply this material. Don't forget to activate Show in Viewport and 2-Sided. After that, in Blinn Basic Parameters, click small button right next to Diffuse. In Material/Map browser choose Bitmap and use file 'ah64_top.gif'. You will see material shown in viewport. But, you may see its orientation is not right.

5. To fix its orientation, go to Coordinates rollout. There are Angle options. Change orientation here by fill with value, like -90 in W. Continue with other 2 materials. Do with the same steps like before. Change its orientation if necessary (for 'ah64_side.gif' you may need to fill 180 in V). Now, you have all planes mapped.

6. With default 3dsmax lighting, sometimes you can't see all faces well. To handle this, you don't need to add more lighting. Just go to Render>Environment. Change Ambient color from black to white. Now, you can see all faces lit well. I usually use Ambient lighting in modeling only. When I start texturing or lighting the scene, I turn Ambient to black again.

7. The most annoying part when using planes as blueprint is you accidentally selecting them. To avoid this, select plane and right click. In quad menu choose Properties. In Display Properties, uncheck 'Show Frozen in Gray'. Repeat with other planes. After that, select all planes. Go to Display tab in Command Panel. Click Freeze Selected button. Now, you can't select all planes. All plane is frozen, but you can still see the material.

8. When I start modeling, usually I applied material to object. I set Opacity to +/- 50. Now, modeled object is half transparent and I can still see the blueprints behind.

These are all tips when using blueprints for modeling. Finished filed can be downloaded here (3dsmax 8 format, zipped, 18kb)

Any question or comments regarding this tutorial should be sent to:
Didik Wijaya, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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