This tutorial will teach you the basics of making abstract images in 3D studio max. In this example, I used a simple sphere, and applied the “Noise” modifier. Then, I applied a transparent, blue, plastic-like material to spice up the whole thing.

Let’s start.

First, make a sphere by selecting the “Sphere” button in the “Standard Primitives” section, and draw somewhere in the center of the perspective view. We will set the size of the sphere later on.

The sphere I made looks like this, yours can be different in size and color, but the only thing that is important is to make sure that your sphere is in the center of the perspective view.



Select the modifier tab (looks like a blue rainbow, next to the picture of a mouse cursor) and set these parameters for the sphere:

Radius:100
Segments: 80 (to make the sphere smooth, if your PC is slow, you may want to select a smaller value)

Make sure that the “Smooth” checkbox is checked (by default, it is) and we can continue.



Now, we will “crystalize” the ball by selecting the “Noise” modifier from the “Select Modifiers” drop-down list.



Now that we have applied the “Noise” modifier, we need to set the needed parameters.

-You can set the “Seed” field to any value you want, but I left it at 0.
-I also left the “Scale” field at 100.
-Check the “Fractal” checkbox.
-Leave the “Roughness” value at 0, and set the “Iterations” value to 10.
-Set the X,Y and Z strength values to 300.



Press the M button on your keyboard to open the material editor.

1. Select the first free blank material box.
2. Click the gray box next to the “Ambient” label, and set the color to be blue, or any other color you like.
3. Set the “Specular level” value to 60, and the “Glossiness” value to 45.
4. To make the material transparent, set the “Opacity” value to 10.



In order to apply the material to our crystalized sphere, drag the material over to the sphere and release your mouse button. The whole thing should get a blue color.



Now, we need to put everything together in one image by rendering our project.
To do that, select “Render” from the “Rendering” menu.



Make sure that the “Single” radio button is selected, because we are rendering an image here, not a video sequence.

Select your preferred image resolution, I left it at 640x480.

Click on the “Render” button.



The image is now rendered and it should look like this:


Wait a little bit before the image is rendered, and save the image by clicking the “Save” button.



That’s it! There are many options that you can easily change to give your crystal the look you want.

 

 

 

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NICE TUTORIAL!!! Good explanation using Images!

How much time did it take for you to learn it ?

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It is much easier to write tutorials by using images, because the person who reads it doesn't have to "chase" the words "Standard Primitives" or "Select Modifiers" on the screen.

If you get 3ds max, you can find allot of beginner tutorials out there, so it is not really that hard. It took me a few days to get used to the "3D world" and moving objects around by the X,Y or Z coordinates, a week to start using materials. Now I am learning on how to model objects, faces, etc.

You just have to be a little bit creative, and the rest is up to 3ds max!

You can also go wild, like I did here, I made a complete chaos out of an ordinary sphere, and it actually looks good .

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nice tutorial but i really do not like the outcome it looks a big blob of jelly i really cant see the abstract in there but nice tutorial thou.

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I have never actualy used 3d Studio Max before. But now I have read this little tutorial, I am going to download it and check it out. I may have a hidden talent in 3d Maxing

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wow nice tutorial m8

does this work with the new vesion of max to

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thanks for sharing. Its nice.

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Nice tutorial. I definitely need to learn 3d Studio Max to the point where i am proficient in it because i do lots of graphical programming and it would come in handy for rendering meshes along with determining how close my render looks to a ray traced image. It is a great app but expensive. Thankfully, i got a free copy from school because of my research.

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Ahhh I was going to do a tut on cinema 4d, but never got around to it. They seem very similar, except I think cinema 4d is better for animation and rendering. I loved the tutorial, how good are your modeling skills?

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This tut is great!

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