by Didik Wijaya

In sci-fi movies, you often saw a monster with tentacles lurking around. In this tutorial you will create tentacle animation using lofting in 3ds max. Not limited to tentacle animation, you can also use this technique in several animation, such as growing vines, cable animation, or else. Actually, you can also create tentacle animation using Path Deform. But in this tutorial I only use Lofting.

1. Download scene below. This is a simple sewer scene (3ds max 8 format). I animated water material using technique described in Sunset Tutorial.

2. Go to Create>Shapes. Click Line button. In Creation Method rollout, make sure Initial Type=Smooth and Drag Type=Bezier. Then click several times in Top viewport to create line like image below. Right click to finish creating line.

3. Make sure line is still selected. Apply Noise modifier. Activate Fractal and adjust Strength values. You'll get random curvy line.

4. In Top viewport, draw circle with Radius=40.

5. Select line. In Command Panel, go to Create>Geometry>Compound Objects. Click Loft button. In Creation Method rollout, click Get Shape button. Then click Circle in viewport. Now, you have long tube. But, it is too big. Don't worry. In the next tutorial part, we will fix that.

Tentacle Animation Using Lofting Part 1 | Part 2

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