2. Begin by setting the Units in MAX to feet and inches. This way, your objects will be scaled as they would in the real world. Go to the Customize menu, and select Units Setup. In the Units Setup dialog, select US Standard. The drop-down list should read Feet w/ Decimal Inches. Under Default Units, select Inches.
Changing the Units Setup does not affect MAX's internal calculations; it merely changes how units are displayed onscreen. Checking Inches under Default Units means that when you type a number, MAX interprets that value in inches.
3. Maximize the Front viewport, then click the 3D Snaps button to activate Snaps.
Right-click the 3D Snaps button to open the Grid and Snap Settings dialog. In the Snaps tab, make sure that Grid Points is the only option checked. Then go to the Home Grid tab and make sure Inhibit Grid Subdivision is unchecked (turned off). See the illustrations below.
When you're done, close the Grid and Snap Settings dialog box.
4. Using the Region Zoom tool, zoom in to the Front viewport until the height of the viewport is about 6 inches in MAX units.
To help you do this, look at the cursor position readout in the Status Line at the bottom of the screen.
You know you have zoomed into the scene correctly when your cursor reads approximately 6 inches in the Z dimension while placed at the top of the viewport. When you place the cursor at the bottom of the viewport, the Status Line should read approximately zero inches. Refer to the illustration below.
5. Now you are prepared to create a martini glass which is about five inches tall. In the Create panel, select Shapes, Splines. Then click on the Line creation button.
In default Line creation mode, you click to create Corner points and click-drag to create Bezier points. Here, we'll create Corner points at first, then convert them later.
Starting at the origin, with Snaps still on, click to create a point, then move the cursor to create a second point at 0'-2", 0, 0. Continue clicking to create points until you have something resembling the following:
After you create the last point (where the inside of the glass meets the stem), right-click to end Line creation mode.
6. Chances are, your first attempt does not look much like the illustration above. To edit your line, go to the Modify panel. With the line selected, enter Vertex Sub-object mode by clicking on the Vertex icon, or by clicking the Sub-object button and selecting Vertex from the drop-down list.
Now you can Select and Move points within the line until it takes on the rough shape of a half-profile of a martini glass.
7. A real martini glass has some curves, so we need to further refine this line. Begin by zooming in on the base of the glass. Turn off 3D Snaps.
Select both vertices on the outer edge of the glass by dragging a window around them. Then right-click either vertex. The context-sensitive right-click menu appears. Look for the list of vertex types, and select Bezier Corner to convert both vertices from Corner to Bezier Corner.
8. Turn off the display of the Transform Gizmo, because it will only get in the way when editing Bezier curves. Go to the Views menu and deselect Show Transform Gizmo. Verify that you are in the View coordinate system, and axis constraints are set to the XY plane.
9. Select one of the outer vertices. Then select one of the green boxes, which are called tangent handles. Adjust the tangent handle so that the line segment between the two outer vertices is curved. The base of the glass should remain flat.
Then adjust the other point until you get a natural-looking curve for the rim of the base. It might end up looking something like this:
10. Now we'll create a curve where the base meets the stem. Scroll the Modify panel until you come to the Geometry rollout. Then click the button which is labeled Fillet.
While Fillet mode is active, position the cursor over the vertex located at the bottom of the stem. The cursor changes to a Fillet icon. Click-drag upward, and the selected point is converted into an arc with a vertex at either end. When you have a curve that looks correctly proportioned for the martini glass, release the mouse button. If you don't like what you did, use the Undo command. Refer to the following illustration.
11. Use the same Fillet technique to create a curve between the stem and the chamber.
12. Convert the two vertices at the top rim of the glass to Bezier Corner vertices. Edit the positions of the vertices and their tangent handles to produce a natural looking rim.
You may notice that the curve at the rim is not as smooth as in other places on the line. You can fix this by using adaptive spline curvature. In the Modify panel, open the General rollout and select Adaptive. The curve of the rim is automatically made smoother.
13. Create a curve at the bottom of the glass by refining the spline. In the Modify panel, Geometry rollout, click the button labeled Refine. Then, as you hover the cursor over the line, the cursor changes to a Refine icon. Click near the bottom of the inner edge of the glass to create a new vertex. Then right-click to exit Refine mode.
14. Refining the curve by adding a new vertex does not change the shape of the spline. It allows us to create a curve at the bottom of the glass without disturbing the straight line nearby. Turn the Transform Gizmo back on from the Views menu. Select the vertex at the bottom of the chamber. Convert it to a Bezier Corner vertex. Then move the vertex up in the Y axis by selecting the Y axis of the Transform Gizmo.
Finally, adjust the tangent handle to produce the correct concave curve.
15. Use Zoom Extents All to see the entire line. Turn off Sub-object mode. Add a Lathe modifier to produce a surface of revolution.
Under Align, select Max. Under Output, select Patch. You should see this result:
16. The martini glass model is finished. Minimize the Front viewport and look at the model in the Perspective view. If you don't see anything, it's because the model is very small relative to the world, and you need to adjust the Viewport Clipping Planes.
Right-click on the Perspective viewport label, then select Viewport Clipping from the pop-up menu. Two red rectangles appear on the right side of the Perspective view. Move the bottom triangle down to the bottom of the viewport. This prevents objects which are very close to the picture plane from being clipped.
17. If the glass appears strangely inside-out as in the picture above, select the Flip Normals option in the Parameters rollout. The model now looks correct.
18. If you look at the bottom of the glass, you'll see a strange puckering of the geometry. This is a minor bug in 3DS MAX. The workaround is to close the original spline, and use polygonal mesh output instead of Bezier patch output. Go to the Modifier Stack and descend down to the level of the Line object. Activate Sub-object Vertex mode, and click the Connect button. Then click-drag from one of the end vertices to the other.
When the curve is closed, click the Connect button again to turn the Connect tool off.
19. Exit Sub-object mode, and return to the level of the Lathe modifer in the stack. If necessary, turn off the Flip Normals option. Change the Output to Mesh, and increase the number of Segments.
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