INSIDE 3DS MAX® 7 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

1.

Start with a new 3ds max scene, and in the Top viewport, create a Sphere primitive with a radius of 30 units and 18 segments.

2.

Apply an FFD (box) modifier to the sphere. Activate the Control Points sub-object mode in the FFD (box) modifier, and then move the lattice to obtain the desired shape. This is going to be the macrophage cell body (Figure 8.70).

3.

Draw a spline in the Left viewport that curves up and away as it gets further from the cell body (Figure 8.71). This will define the curve of the first of the filopodia.

4.

Add an Edit Poly modifier on top of the FFD (box) modifier in the Modifier Stack. Select a number of polygons and extrude them to a height of 0 units. This probably seems odd, but when these polygons are scaled in their local coordinate system, they will allow us to create a smaller polygon inside a bigger polygon. Or you could use the Inset tool which does the same thing, followed by the scale tool for adjusting the shape of the new inset polygon (Figure 9.72).

5.

Use the Extrude Along Spline tool to extrude small filopodia from each of these polygon selections. If you do them one at a time, you can give each of the extrusions a different rotation so that they'll point generally upward. Use a Taper Amount of 0.8 for the filopodia (Figure 8.73).

6.

For more variety, create another, smaller curved spline similar to the first one and add some more filopodia in other places along the base of the cell body. Also create a long, undulating spline and use the Extrude Along Spline tool to create some longer, more stretched-out filopodia with this new spline (Figure 8.74).

7.

Marquee-select the end of one of these filopodia and click the Grow button in the Selection rollout until the whole filopodium is selected. Shift-Move the selected polygons to copy the filopodium. Move this unattached selection of polygons to another part of the cell body. Delete the face on the cell body where you would like to connect the filopodium polygons and select the borders on the open face in the cell body and on the end of the filopodium. In the Edit Borders rollout, click the Bridge settings button. This will connect the two borders with a "bridge" of polygons (Figure 8.75).

8.

Switch to Vertex sub-object level, then use the Paint Selection Region with the Select Object tool to select the end vertices of some of the filopodia and turn on Use Soft Selection. Turn up the Falloff value and Edge Distance high enough that you can influence about half the filopodia's lengths with the vertices selected at the ends. You can also paint the soft selection with the Paint button in the Soft Selection rollout. Pull the vertices into more random positions so that they don't all look the same (Figure 8.76).

9.

While we're on the topic of painting, let's take a quick look at using Paint Deformations (Figure 8.77). These will help you add more organic irregularitiesto the cell body and the filopodia. Exit sub-object mode, open the Paint Deformation rollout, and click the Push/Pull Value button. Click and drag with the left mouse button on the mesh and watch the mesh deform. A positive Push/Pull value pushes the mesh, while a negative value pulls it. The Brush Size is the area of the brush's influence, and the Brush Strength value determines how far the mesh is pushed or pulled. There are also brush options similar to the Paint Skin Weights brush. The Revert button in the same rollout allows location-specific undo of the mesh manipulation done by the Paint Deformation brush. It's a very useful and intuitive tool that makes modeling feel more like working with pieces of clay.

1.

First, right-click the macrophage model and select Convert To > Convert to Editable Poly in the lower right Quad menu.

2.

In Polygon sub-object mode, select the tips of all the filopodia and click the Grow button until they're all selected. All the polygons for the filopodia have a Face ID of 2, and they can stay that way. Now go the Edit menu on the Main toolbar and choose Select Invert. The cell body also has a Face ID of 2, but we will change it to 1.

3.

Do a rough unwrap of the macrophage model with the Unwrap UVW modifier, and then collapse it back to an Editable Poly (Figure 8.78).

4.

Take a look at the Multi/Sub-Object material in the Material Editor for the Macrophage_Material.max file. The first material is for the cell body, and the second is for the filopodia. Save this material and apply it to the model in your own scene file, or continue the exercise with this file (Figure 8.79).

5.

Apply a TurboSmooth modifier and a Displace Mesh (WSM) modifier to the macrophage model. Enable Custom Settings and Subdivision Displacement, and choose Spatial and Curvature as the Subdivision Method. For the Edge and Distance values, enter 60, and for the Angle, enter 25. Click on the Advanced Parameters button, then in the Advanced Displacement Approx. dialog, choose Delaunay as the Subdivision Style and click OK (Figure 8.80).

1.

Put a plane below the macrophage in the scene to function as a ground plane. You can also add a reflective material to the Plane if you want add extra dimension to the scene.

2.

The last step is to add the bacteria in clusters around the scene. Use the Capsule primitive with the Melt modifier to give the bacteria the appearance of being saggy, flexible, and somewhat irregular (Figure 8.81).

3.

Open the file entitled Macrophage_Final.max to see the final look. Make the camera viewport active and render the scene. You can add depth of field, as was done here. Anything in optical microscopy is seen with an extremely shallow depth of field. Adding a shallow depth of field to this scene reinforces the small size of these organic objects, even though, strictly speaking, there is neither depth of field nor reflections in a scanning electron microscope image (Figure 8.82).