Basic Max - Lesson 2

How to setup units of measurement:
1. Customize
2. Units setup

How to setup grid units:
1. Customize
2. Grids & Snaps
or right click on the magnet icons.

Array - how to clone around an object.
1. Select object to make an array
2. Tools
3. Array

Align - one object to another.
1. Select object to make an array
2. Tools
3. Align
4. Click second object and then select what parameter to align.

H/w to Basic Max - Lesson 1

Make an office looking environment, i.e. table with books on it, a piece of paper, a pen and a lamp.

Start with making a table, as an example look at the IKEA site, say the table AMMERO, with dimensions (L/W/H) - (160/90/72):

Start off by creating an arbitrary box, click the transform tool and center it at the origin. Set, X, Y and Z coordinates to 0.









Then, click on the modify tab and adjust the size of the box to the size of the table top. I.e. (L/W/H) - (160/90/3) and raise it on the z axis to 69.








Now on to the legs. Create a random box and modify the parameters to be L/W/H - 3/3/69. And have this one leg coordinates me (X,Y,Z) - (-43.5,-78.5,0).

Now, while the object is clicked, press shift and move the object to along the x-axis. And let go. You will have a clone of the leg. Set the coordinates of the new leg to (X,Y,Z) - (43.5,-78.5,0). Now select both of the legs, press shift and drag along the y-axis. Set the coordinates to (X,Y,Z) - (43.5,78.5,0) and (X,Y,Z) - (-43.5,78.5,0) respectively.

And that's it. The table is ready.

On to books. This will be simple. Click to create a box and select AutoGrid.

Next create a box by drawing on top of the table surface. I made mine my first book with the following size and coordinates: (X,Y,Z) - (30,-70,72) and (L/W/H) - (6/20/30). Next clone the book as many times as you'd like in the Y direction. I made 8 copies (not instances or references, otherwise you can't modify each book). Next you can modify the dimensions of each book to make it more diverse. As well as rotate the object so one book leans on the other.



On to pen and paper. This will be simple, the paper will be a box on top of the table and a primitive pen will be a cylinder. To create 3 sheets of paper, first create a box on top of the table, I created the legal size paper with (X,Y,Z) - (-20,0,72) and (L/W/H) - (21.59/28/0.1). Next, clone the sheet either using the rotate or move tool. Increase the position into the Z axis by 0.1, 72.1 and slightly rotate it. Repeat with the cloning again and increase the Z axis by 0.1 to 72.2.
Next create a cylinder with (X,Y,Z) - (-30,-21,72.5) and (R/H) - (0.5/14) and rotate it along the y-axis 90 degrees.

And finally, the lamp. The lamp will have a base consisting of 2 cylinders, a rod and a cone.
The first cylinder will be the base of the lamp with (X,Y,Z) - (18,50,72) and (R/H) - (16/2).
The second cylinder is drawn on top of the first with (X,Y,Z) - (18,50,74) and (R/H) - (15/1.5).
The rod cylinder is drawn on top of the second cylinder with (X,Y,Z) - (18,50,75.5) and (R/H) - (1.5/30).
And finally the cone is drawn on top of the rod with (X,Y,Z) - (15,50,105.5) and (R1/R2/H) - (20/10/20).
And the simple lamp is complete as is the homework.



This is how the final scene looks like:

Basic Max - Lesson 1

Hardware
CPU > 2Ghz - best if multiprocessing
RAM > 1GB
Video Card 128x960
HDD > 50% virtual memory

Some wording:
Vertex - вершинки
Edge - ребро
Face - грань

Short cuts:
Shift + Q - Rendering
Alt + W - make scene full screen

To Clone, select object, then press Shift and move the object. You can either create a:
Copy - independant object
Instance - will follow changes of the original object
Reference -  only the original can be changed
To make the cloned object a stand alone, have to go to modifications and make unique.






To move, rotate, scale object precisely, right click on the transform button (scale, rotate):





To change Pivot of an object, Select the Hierarchy tab and then change Pivot click affect pivot only, similarly to precision setup, can put the pivot by typing in numbers.