Modeling a Lantern Using Splines and Loft
By Stealth Snake | 3D Studio Max | IntermediateThis tutorial will teach you how to model a middle-eastern style lantern using splines and loft. Loft objects are two-dimensional shapes extruded along a third axis. One of these splines serves the path while the remaining splines serve as cross-sections, or shapes, of the loft object. Here is an example of the result that we are going to make by the end of this tutorial.
Creating the lantern Body using loft
We are going to draw a spline line to set the height of our lantern to later. To create this line go through Create > Shapes > Splineline. Hold Shift to make it straight and then use the Move Tool to move it to the center of the scene where the value of x, y, and z equals zero. On the top viewport, create a Rectangular shape with whatever size you choose, move it to the center of the scene the same way we did for the spline line.
While the rectangle is still selected, access the Modify tab and look for Corner Radius. Play around with the settings to make the corners smoother by increasing its value. Once you are satisfied with the smoothness of your curve, convert the rectangle to an Editable Spline by right-clicking on it and then selecting Convert to > Convert to Editable Spline from the menu that pops up.
Access the Modify tab and change the Selection Mode to Vertex, then select all of the vertices using Ctrl+A. Right-click on the vertices and select the Corner command. Select the spline line and then go through the Create tab > Geometry and select Compound Objects from the drop down menu. Finally, from the Object Type rollout, select Loft.
Look for the Creation Method rollout on the Create tab, click on the Get Shape button and then select we have on the scene. This shows you the basic idea of what lofting is in Max.
Our model does not really look like a lantern as you can see, we need to add more details to it. Head to the Modify tab and select Loft from the list box. Scroll down to the Skin Parameters rollout, you will have to open this rollout by clicking once on it if you find it closed. Set the value of Shape Steps to 0 and the Path Steps to 9. Those two values define the newly created shape details, you can try playing around with them for a while to see how the loft shape changes in accordance to their value.
Convert the newly created shape to polygons by right-clicking on it and then selecting the Convert to > Convert to Editable Polygons command. Access the Modify tab and change the Selection Mode to Vertex and rearrange them on the front viewport as illustrated in the image below on the right.
We will now have to rescale the vertices to give the lantern its final shape. Use different viewports to help you get the scale proportions right, check the image below for more details. I resized the overall shape/size of my lantern by using the Move Tool to move the three groups, Lantern Header, Lantern Mid, and Lantern Footer, to give the overall shape a better perspective.
Now you could see the reason why I used 9 as path steps, where I used it to create the vertexes for me, instead of using the slice with polygon.
Creating the lantern Window Glass
Access the Modify tab and change the Selection Mode to Polygon, selection the polygons that you would like to use as windows, look for the Inset command and click on the box next to it.
From the Inset Polygons pop-up window, change the value of Inset Amount, use the viewport to see the size of the polygons you are creating to act as a window. Hit OK once you are happy with the result you got to close and create the new polygons.
While the new polygons are still selected, look for the Detach button on the Modify tab and hit it, a pop-up window should open, assign the name glass to the detached polygons and hit OK.
Our lantern is now ready, the rest is just an application of materials which goes beyond the scope of this tutorial. I applied the Raytrace material with a golden colour to the lantern body and a semi transparent Raytrace to the glass window, a few lighting setup on the scene and the hit render. Here is the final image after some Photoshop editing.
This concludes our tutorial, I hope that you learnt something new about the lofting modeling technique. If you have any questions please feel free to post them at the Oman3D Forum.
- End of Tutorial