Tutorials

Use our detailed and easy to follow 3ds Max tutorials, suitable for beginners and more advanced CGI artists.


In this tutorial, you will learn how to create the “clay” and wire frames commonly used to display models. Apart from looking cool, they allow you to see curves and corners more clearly by the use of light and shadows. Key terms include Light Tracer, Skylight, Mental Ray Final Gather, Bounces, Composite and wire materials. This tutorial is aimed at the beginner and every step is outlined and displayed in detail. If you are entirely new to 3D Studio MAX, you may want to try some of our other tutorials first.

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In this tutorial you will learn how to create realistic mirror material in 3ds Max, using several different techniques. The tutorial is aimed at the beginner, but it might be interesting for more advanced users others as well. As usual, there are several different ways to do something in 3ds Max and achieve similar results. In this tutorial we'll cover 3 different techniques to create a mirror that reflects other objects in the scene.

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In this tutorial, I will show you how you can model a chain, rig it in a couple of simple steps. This allows you to pose and animate the chain in an efficient manner. This tutorial is aimed at the beginner and every step is outlined and displayed in detail, but does assume some basic knowledge of 3D Studio Max.

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In this tutorial you will learn how to create a realistic glass material and turn our chess pawn into a realistic glass object. Key terms include reflection, refraction, opacity, and fall-off. This tutorial is aimed at the beginner, but since there are several ways to create glass, it might be interesting for everyone else as well.

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In this tutorial you will learn how to model a chess pawn in 3ds Max. The main purpose is to show you some basic Editable Poly edit options and how they can be used to create something very quickly. This tutorial is suitable for absolute beginners.

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When you start out with 3D Studio MAX you will likely start with trying out different tools and features and the basics. Something that should be included in those basics, but is often left out, is using hotkeys. As you already know, or will certainly find out soon, creating 3D art is a time-consuming activity. Using hotkeys and the mouse efficiently can save you tons of time.

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Like most tasks in 3D Studio Max and similar products, rigging robots is easy, if you know how. Depending on the complexity of the robot, some may find it even easier than rigging a human or animal character. This is because most parts of a robot do not deform during movement, with the exception of cabling and other flexible parts, so you don’t have to ‘skin’ it. One of the primary challenges in building a cool robot, which still looks cool when animated, is creating realistic mechanical joints.

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This 3D Studio MAX video tutorial shows you how you can use various modeling techniques to create a cross-drilled, slotted solid non-ventilated brake rotor. These include using donut, circle, and rectangle shapes, the Array Tool, Bend modifier, basic poly-modeling, smoothing groups and much more.

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This video tutorial shows various quick modeling techniques including Line spline shapes, Lathe modifier, Smooth modifier, Editable Poly, Snap to grid, and more, to create a plunger. Every step is shown in the video, from an empty scene to a rendered version, so this tutorial is very suitable for beginners with little to no experience with 3D Studio MAX.

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This tutorial will show you how to model a highly detailed basketball in 3ds Max using box modeling techniques. This tutorial is suitable for beginners but assume some basic knowledge. If you have zero 3ds Max modeling experience, try our Modeling a Chess Pawn tutorial first.

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There are several tutorials on the web about creating tires and they all use a similar technique in which a small section of the tire is modeled in detail, is duplicated about 50 times and bend. That method allows you to create highly detailed, and high-poly, tires. Another method is using a bump map to for the tire tracks, which is obviously a very low-poly solution. In this video tutorial you will learn a fairly quick method to create a fairly detailed tire by using simple extrusion techniques on a cylinder.

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In this tutorial you will learn how to create gold, silver, and copper material. Key terms include reflection, specular, index of refraction, fresnel, and fall-off. This tutorial is aimed at both beginners and professionals. Although this tutorial is based on 3D Studio Max, the same settings apply to many other 3D products.

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