Newbie help

Now, i always thought 3d animation was awesome, i just started having an interest in it, im not a spectacular artist but im not too shaby either, i was just wondering if anyone knew of any tutorials that would help a complete newb out. keep in mind i havent even opened up the program yet, ill be using 3ds max and light wave as well as maya. Any help will be appreciated, i want to make sure ill enjoy doing this before i spend time and money on college.

Thanks!

Max comes with pretty much all the tutorials needed to get a noob started and if they arewnt what you are looking for, you're on a great website for tutorials, its named after them after all! just click the leaf logo in the top left corner of the page.

ok, new question, im following one of the tutorials that comes with the program, and it says with the fillet command active, but doesnt explain how to set it active....anyone care to give me a hand here?

what version of max are you using and what object/shape are you trying to make at that stage? i.e. chamferbox, rectangle .etc .etc

Im using 3dsmax 8 and im trying to round the edges of spline i did of the chess peice and it tells me to and i quote "Select the two rightmost vertices and then activate the Fillet button on the Modify panel.

With the Fillet command active, place the cursor on one of the selected vertices and then click and drag to round off the two corners, as shown below"

now granted im completely new to this and im probably missing something in front of my face, but for the life of me i cant get it to do what it shows in the picture.



this is what im trying to do[/img]

OK its quite easy (only if you know how i suppose)

What you do is after drawingh the spline (line), go to the modify panel in the top right of your screen (looks a bit like a blue rainbow) then click the small plus sign (+) next to the name of the line i.e. line01.

This brings out three sub object selection modes, click on vertex

this allows you to select the individual points along the line. Select the two verticies in question (hold down Ctrl to select two at the same time and they will turn red to show they have been selected.

Then, further down the modify panel you will see a button called fillet. click this and it will turn yellow now all you have to do is click a drag either of the two selected vertices and you will see the round corner appear and get bigger depending on how far you drag it.

see the picture below

Hope this helps

thanks a ton, i just had to scroll down and i would have saw the fillet button, but there was no scroll bar so it didnt even occur to me, now that i feel sufficiently dumb, ill say my thanks and come back later with more stupid questions im sure! thanks again

i finished my first peice, and i know its not much, but its something and i think its pretty awesome that i made it. anyway for those who care here it is!

lol, dont worry I still remember the first time I made something, I almost felt I could make anything! and It was the biggest greatest thing I ever made, I felt so accomplished it was great. good job, make more and see what your potential is!

Ive now run into a new problem, now that ive created serveral chess peices my friend wants me to put texture on them and he will make a chess game, but i have yet to find a tutorial which shows me how to apply textures to objects, if anyone knows of one thats easy to follow it would be great if you could link it here for me

Thanks!

Unwrapping a model is quite a complex thing to do at first but you'll soon get the hang of it.

This tut I found on this site doesnt look too bad, its a little bit more involved than you want but Its always better to learn more than you need so you can do it next time on something else.

http://www.tutorialized.com/tutoria...Texturing/10791

I'll keep looking and post another if I find a suitable one.

(after reading the tut you'll probably find you need the cylindrical gizmo in the UVW map modifier (you'll see what i mena later)

[edit]this one too... http://www.tutorialized.com/tutoria...tart-Here/14001

awesome thanks a lot, these will help!

nice to see you finished it

congrats and thanx for the post up of your finished peice

i always refer for those who new in the world of 3d to learn from starting,

its the best way to read the help index of the softwares,

good luck!