Making a model from scratch

Using 3dsmax7
not moving some vertecies from a wc3 unit or geomerging some stuff...from scratch...
yea...open 3dsmax...now what,place some primitvies?
then what?
how do you put a 2d picture in the background?
and now for the stupid question...how do you extrude..heh...im bad at 3d...
yea after all that....stuff....then Ill get the texture...yea yea...no one cares...
and here is the part i care about most...animating...animating in max7...
I need to learn this...
ok...after i do all this...then what?can i just save and convert to mdx?no need to worry about any .mdl?
yea...i need these questions awnsered...or left to rot in the modeling forum...iether way im going to try that scratch model...
im trying to make a simple humanoid fyi(just to learn how)

To extrude you'll need to select a face, right click and search for extrude. Atleast this is how it works in 3dsmax 5 but I hope they are close enough.

To make good looking models you can start either from a low segments sphere, low segments cylinder, a box and then drag polygons here and there. Look what I made freehand and it took me 30 minutes. And I'm not master of modelling. I terribly suck at arts.



All you have to do is practice. It sounds pathetic but yeah, that's what you have to do. And make a sketch. It will make things much easier for you. Tip: My model is only 450 polys.

~Daelin

first of all you should try it slowly use some wc parts, and then slowly make it all from scratch. It also matters on what your making if it's a building like daelin showed, go for it, but a unit, well try and at least use wc heads. Anyways a tip is to change the stacks and slices of the cynlinders and abuse them to make arms and legs

Making units from scratch is A LOT harder than it looks...the face is the hardest part. (I always screw it up)

At the start, i'ts better to blizzard models as reference; but, if you're using max 7, how are you going to export them? It's not compatible with the art tools.

use dex script

i use 3ds max 7 yes its possible to make units from scratch for wc3 and use dex script....you dont have to have art tools...but you can run into some problems from time to time with the dex script. You should really look into doing the tutorials that come with max7 if you can work your way through those it will help you alot with scratch modelling. The tutorials will also explain how to put your textures on your models and so forth. Only downside to 3ds max is that they dont have alot of info on low poly modelling with there tuts.

ok...only person that realy helped was daelien...i know how to extrude on an alllready made wc3model...i just needed to figure out how to get something,like a cube to be extrude...but i figured that out...convert to editable mesh...not pull an editable mesh from the modifier list...but thats not the important part...

how do you put a 2d picture in the background?
des script is buggy indead...but usualy i just remove isolated vertices and its all good...
what i need though is...CUSTOM ANIMATIONS...yea...no need for caps but yeah...
i know how to play animations but how to make custom?
the pic and animations and i'll be happy

Aznwhore made a very cool tutorial. Have a look at it... It kinda hleped me figure out some stuff (not totally though): http://www.wc3campaigns.com/showthread.php?t=67285 .

And as for the sketch, I meant to tell you to make a sketch on the paper and then you can know what you want to obtain. Not put it in 3dsmax, just have a picture of how you want your building/unit to look. The you can just pull vertexes here and there, create faces, mess up with the primitives, and voila, you are done.

To put 2d stuff on the background... lol, to be honest I don't know either.

For Custom animations, what isn't explained in Aznwhore's tutorial is that once you get the stuff in the dope sheet (notes), then the only problem is that he doesn't tell you how exactly you can difference the animations. The thing is that if for example you place notes for death animation between 70 and 100 frames, then the animation will begin from 70 and end at 100, even though in 3dsmax it won't appear as if the animation is independent. I thought quite a lot about this...
Good luck!

~Daelin

if you're doing animations I highly suggest you use milkshape, much much much simpler. For putting images in the background I forgot I don't use 3ds max much, I think you should go to preferences or sumthin

to make a reference picture of something your modelling create a simple plane and then use the material editor to drag and drop your pic from your computer onto the plane to look at however the plane must be mapped to look correctly........to bring up the material editor if it isnt on your tool bar hit the m button. Do you have the tutorials for 3ds max 7???????????? Cause you really should look into those you cant be impatient when using this program you should really learn it, i took my time to learn alot of stuff on it and it will help you with your from scratch modelling.

The most dificult part is not modeling but animating n texturing, okay for animating transfering animations from existing models doesnt count... but its a lot easier! ^^
n for texturing(I mean unwrapping)...u got my tutorial here ^^ http://www.wc3campaigns.com/showthread.php?t=75286
yeah its 3ds max but I guess the proces can be applied to other software

all i would say is to start with simple mesh editing, try making objects like swords, shields, and then try making simple buildings, like houses baracks.

that way you will get some knowledge before starting to really model. To really model as i said you need to aply some continues tecnics (you may see some from whitehorns tutorial) like extrude- bevel- chanfer edges/vertexes-collapse vertexes/edges- slice poly-cut edges/poly- insert vertexes & create poly; and ofcourse soft selection, for esculping your model.

the rest that is animating and unwraping is easier, depending on how you make your model and yourself (for me for example is easy to animate, because i use alot of helpers and bones and always use skin modifier.)

Max 5 for teh win. Everything else is for failures! Seriously while the dex script maybe can export one or two models correctly (I was the first to get it working properly on all anims on a model in fact) it lacks support on loads of things and there's stuff that seriously doesn't get good. You have to do it mostly in mdl editing in that case which is time consuming. You're better off with just getting Max 5 somewhere. It's not that hard to get if you know how to look really.