Problem extruding an AutoCAD drawing in 3ds Max 2013

[Anonymous]

Hello

I am having a problem extruding a DWG file in 3DS Max. When I select the extrude modifier and give it an amount I can only extrude the splines and not the area enclosed within them. Here is a screenshot of what I mean.

I want to extrude all the blue areas in this drawing which I highlighted. I am trying to design a level so I want the grey area to be the characters path through it and the blue area to be the floor and ceiling. Im new to AutoCad and 3DS Max so I dont know much about them. 

[Steve_Curley]

Make certain that the vertices are welded. Each area needs to be surrounded by a single, closed Spline. So that means the main outer Spline surrounding the main Blue area, the Spline which surrounds the Grey area and also the one surrounding the the Blue "island".

A word of caution - Max does not always like complex shapes when extruding. You may find it will work better if you split the model into sections, extrude each one, convert them to Editable Poly then attach them together. Will require a little extra work removing "internal" polys and then welding the vertices between the various sections.

[darawork]

Personally I'd extrude in AutoCad and then import the dwg afterwards.

A tip for AutoCad; Type 'bo' to bring up the boundary region tool. Click in the middle of the shape and it will create a closed polyline boundary automatically. Then simply type 'ext' (shortcut to extrude), 'L' (to select last created entity) then the enter the extrusion height.

If you need to modify the extrusion in Max you can still get to sub-object level and move the grip nodes around.

You can only modify an 'imported' dwg. A file linked dwg is basically locked down until you right-click and convert to editable mesh/poly.