Creating a lizard head in 3D Studio MAX

HOW TO GLOSSARY:

Collapse an object to an editable mesh: 1) Select the object. 2) Click on the modify tab (it's the 2nd tab) on the control panel. 3) Click the "Edit Stack" button . If a dialog box comes up, click the "Collapse All" button. If a pop up menu appears, click "editable mesh."

Connect two objects together: 1) Select each object and delete the faces where you want the connection to go. Select "yes" when prompted to "Delete isolated vertices." NOTE: try to have only 1 set of open edges on each object. If there are more than one set of open edges, the results of the connection may not be what you want them to be. 2) Select one of the objects and click on the create tab (1st tab) on the control panel. 3) From the drop down list select "Compound Objects." 4) Click on the "Connect" button. 5) Click "Pick Operand" and select the object you want to connect this object to. 6) Adjust the tension and segments to your liking. 7) Check "Bridge" and "Ends" under "Smoothing" 8)

Scale and move an FFD Lattice: 1) With the object selected and the FFD selected from the modifier stack, click the "Sub-Object" button and then select "Lattice" from the drop down list. 2) Move and scale the lattice as desired. 3) Select "Control Points" from the "Sub-Object" list to return to FFD to its normal deformation mode. 4)

Blending a region: 1) Select the object. 2) Apply an Edit Mesh modifier and select the desired pixels. 3) Turn off the "Sub-Object" button. 4) Apply a Blend modifier and check "Selected vertices only." 5)

Getting rid of striations and dark/light patches: 1) Use Blend (Relax might work if you don't have blend) to cope with the majority of the problems. 2) Use Edit mesh to collapse/weld points not handled by the Blend/Relax modifier. 3)

Flip Surface Normals: 1) Select the object. 2) If it is already an editable mesh, skip to step 3. Otherwise, collapse it to an editable mesh, or apply an Edit Mesh modifier. 3) Click the Sub-Object button and then select faces from the drop down list. 4) Select the faces in the viewport. 5) With the Sub-Object button still clicked, scroll to the bottom of the Modifier tab. 6) Click the Flip button under the Normal panel. Click the Sub-Object button to turn it off. 7)

Figure 1.1: Side view of a Fambaa swamp lizard (image comes from "Star Wars Episode I: The Visual Dictionary" by DK Publishing, Inc.)).
Figure 1.2: Front view of a Fambaa swamp lizard (image comes from "Star Wars Episode I: The Visual Dictionary" by DK Publishing, Inc.)).
Figure 1.3: Changing the selection color in Preference Settings.
Figure 1.4: Wireframe view of the side and front reference objects.
Figure 1.5: Checking to see that the front and side reference images are the same height.
Figure 1.6: Shaded view of the side and front reference objects.
Figure 1.7: Shaded sphere obscuring the view of the reference object.
Figure 1.8: Material Editor settings used to create a wireframe material which allows the reference objects to be seen through the geometry.
Figure 1.9: Wireframe material applied to the same sphere shown in Figure 1.7.
Figure 1.10: A rough representation of the front view of the fambaa swamp lizard created with a 3x3x3 free-form deformation (FFD).
Figure 1.11: Side view of the fambaa swamp lizard with a 3x3x3 FFD applied.
Figure 1.12: Further refinement of the body with a 4x4x4 FFD.
Figure 1.13: A 2x2x5 FFD used to create the stomach bulge in the front view.
Figure 1.14: A copy of the torso rotated and scaled to form the head.
Figure 1.15: The head widened through the cheeks with an indication of the cranial peak.
Figure 1.16: Side view of the tweaked head.
Figure 1.17: The head and the faces which will make up the cheek.
Figure 1.18: The faces on the head to be deleted to allow the cheek to be connected to the head.
Figure 1.19: The head after the cheek has been attached.
Figure 1.20: The creation of the muzzle with a 3x3x3 FFD.
Figure 1.21: The head mirrored and connected.
Figure 1.22: The torso and the head ready to be connected together.
Figure 1.23: Dark striations which can result from the use of Connect.
Figure 1.24: The vertices to be used by the Blend modifier.
Figure 1.25: The result of the Blend modifier.
Figure 1.26: Dark patches like this can arise when the Blend modifier is used. The patch is the result of a large number of non-planar vertices in a small area.
Figure 1.27: The result of using Edit Mesh to select the vertices around the patch and collapse them to one vertex.
Figure 1.28: The final neck structure (post FFD tweaking).
Figure 1.29: The body vertices to be deleted to create the tail.
Figure 1.30: The body with the tail connected and blended.
Figure 1.31: The first pass at creating the front leg of the lizard.
Figure 1.32: A side view of Figure 1.31.
Figure 1.33: Through the use of higher resolution FFDs the front leg is refined to more closely resemble the reference material.
Figure 1.34: The finished back leg.
Figure 1.35: The body and the front leg ready for connection.
Figure 1.36: Another view of Figure 1.35.
Figure 1.37: The front leg connected to the body.
Figure 1.38: The back leg ready to be connected.
Figure 1.39: Another view of Figure 1.38.
Figure 1.40: The back leg connected to the body.
Figure 1.41: Hemispheres ready to become toes.
Figure 1.42: The toes attached to the leg.
Figure 1.43: The lower leg and toes after using Blend to soften the transition.
Figure 1.44: The back leg with toes connected and blended.
Figure 1.45: A simple sphere modified via 3x3x3 FFD into an eye shape.
Figure 1.46: The eye in position for boolean operation.
Figure 1.47: Flipping the faces of the sphere.
Figure 1.48: A copy of the boolean sphere positioned to be an eye.
Figure 1.49: A simple, closed curve which will be extruded to form the mouth.
Figure 1.50: Top-down view of the extruded mouth.
Figure 1.51: View of the head with the eye and the mouth gap.
Figure 1.52: Several views of the mirrored and blended lizard.
Figure 1.53: The final lizard with a tweaked version of the side reference image applied.

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