Create a Cylinder at the Origin, Height 100, Radius 65, Sides 10, Height Segments 1, Cap Segments 1.
Position it precisely at the Origin (right click the spinners). Convert to Editable Poly.
Select the Top and Bottom polys and delete them. Select all the polys and Flip them.
Select the Top Border, switch to the Top viewport, Select and Uniform Scale, View, Use Selection Center and Shift+Scale away from the model. Not too far, but far enough that the Chamfer (to be done next) won't cause the edges to meet - 150% should be good. Repeat the above once more, this time about 200%.
Using the up/down buttons by "Ring" select the innermost circle of edges, click the Chamfer dialog button, 3 and 1 segment should do - you can see the effect in the viewport - ok the dialog.
At the Object level, Shift+Move along the X axis to clone the object (copy, not instance). Move it to exactly 450 (+ or -, it doesn't matter which).
Back to the Perspective view, Move, View, Use Transform Coordinate Centre (which happens to be the Origin - now you begin to see why it's important to model at the origin). Click the Array button, change the Type to Copy, enter 360 in the Rotation Total field, 6 in the 1D Count field and click the Preview button - you should have a ring of 6 cylinders. Click OK.
Select the central cylinder and attach the others to it. Top Viewport, 3D Snap to Vertex, Polygon level, Create. Fill in the gaps by creating Quads (4-sided polys). This is easier to see than describe - see the images. For each poly you want to create, click each of the 4 vertices in turn, starting and ending on the same one.
When completed, select the outer border and Shift+Scale it outwards to 110%.
For the outer section, create a new cylinder again centered on the origin - same details as for the original "hole" cylinder above, but make the Sides 20 and the Radius however big it needs to be - I have no reference other than your original scene, so I used a "reasonable" figure of 900. Convert to EP, remove the top and bottom polys. Top viewport, Select the top Border, Select and Uniform Scale, View, use Selection Center, Shift+Scale the border in to 94%, then again to 92%. Using the same method as above, select the outer ring of edges, and chamfer them by the same amount
Select the main part of the model and attach the new cylinder to it. Vertex level, Snaps on, Target Weld. Starting at the top (as you look at it in the top viewport, target weld the vertices, working from the inner edge to the outer one each time, and working down the sides, then start at the bottom and work up. You should end up with the next image - there will be 2 triangular "gaps" which we'll fix next. Back to Polgon level, Create, and make the polys to fill in the 2 gaps. Triangles don't smooth well when the polys are curved, but they're ok on a flat surface - this is why all the border extrusions - to keep those areas in quads, leaving any triangles for the flat areas.
Nearly done - Perspective viewport, Move, View, Use Pivot Point Center. choose the Mirror tool, Mirror in X, Copy (no offset) and OK the dialog. Select the upper portion, attach the lower portion to it. Front (or Side) viewport, Vertex level, area select all the vertices along the joint betwwen the 2 halves of the model - weld them - you shouldn't need a very large weld threshold as the vertices should be coincident (another useful side-effect of modelling on the axes). Those new edges along the joint are actually superfluous - you can remove them if you want. Edge level, area select in the same way as for the vertices, but you'll notice that you have vertical edges selected as well. Alt+area select those edges to delect them.
Now for the fun bit - on the selection rollout you'll see 5 buttons for Vertex, Edge etc - these perform the same function as the ones in the stack (and the 1 through 5 digit shortcuts) but with 1 useful extra feature. If you Ctrl+Click them, they select (in our case) the Vertices (or edges) associated with the selected edges (or vertices), so Ctrl-Click the Vertex button. Click (normally, without control) the Edge button again, Click Remove, click the Vertex button, Remove. This just helps keep the poly count down a little bit.
You can now turn on NURMS as I did, or apply Meshsmooth or turbosmooth.
If anyone else wants to comment on this, tell me there's a much easier way, or point out any glaring errors - feel free 😛
Position it precisely at the Origin (right click the spinners). Convert to Editable Poly.
Select the Top and Bottom polys and delete them. Select all the polys and Flip them.
Select the Top Border, switch to the Top viewport, Select and Uniform Scale, View, Use Selection Center and Shift+Scale away from the model. Not too far, but far enough that the Chamfer (to be done next) won't cause the edges to meet - 150% should be good. Repeat the above once more, this time about 200%.
Using the up/down buttons by "Ring" select the innermost circle of edges, click the Chamfer dialog button, 3 and 1 segment should do - you can see the effect in the viewport - ok the dialog.
At the Object level, Shift+Move along the X axis to clone the object (copy, not instance). Move it to exactly 450 (+ or -, it doesn't matter which).
Back to the Perspective view, Move, View, Use Transform Coordinate Centre (which happens to be the Origin - now you begin to see why it's important to model at the origin). Click the Array button, change the Type to Copy, enter 360 in the Rotation Total field, 6 in the 1D Count field and click the Preview button - you should have a ring of 6 cylinders. Click OK.
Select the central cylinder and attach the others to it. Top Viewport, 3D Snap to Vertex, Polygon level, Create. Fill in the gaps by creating Quads (4-sided polys). This is easier to see than describe - see the images. For each poly you want to create, click each of the 4 vertices in turn, starting and ending on the same one.
When completed, select the outer border and Shift+Scale it outwards to 110%.
For the outer section, create a new cylinder again centered on the origin - same details as for the original "hole" cylinder above, but make the Sides 20 and the Radius however big it needs to be - I have no reference other than your original scene, so I used a "reasonable" figure of 900. Convert to EP, remove the top and bottom polys. Top viewport, Select the top Border, Select and Uniform Scale, View, use Selection Center, Shift+Scale the border in to 94%, then again to 92%. Using the same method as above, select the outer ring of edges, and chamfer them by the same amount
Select the main part of the model and attach the new cylinder to it. Vertex level, Snaps on, Target Weld. Starting at the top (as you look at it in the top viewport, target weld the vertices, working from the inner edge to the outer one each time, and working down the sides, then start at the bottom and work up. You should end up with the next image - there will be 2 triangular "gaps" which we'll fix next. Back to Polgon level, Create, and make the polys to fill in the 2 gaps. Triangles don't smooth well when the polys are curved, but they're ok on a flat surface - this is why all the border extrusions - to keep those areas in quads, leaving any triangles for the flat areas.
Nearly done - Perspective viewport, Move, View, Use Pivot Point Center. choose the Mirror tool, Mirror in X, Copy (no offset) and OK the dialog. Select the upper portion, attach the lower portion to it. Front (or Side) viewport, Vertex level, area select all the vertices along the joint betwwen the 2 halves of the model - weld them - you shouldn't need a very large weld threshold as the vertices should be coincident (another useful side-effect of modelling on the axes). Those new edges along the joint are actually superfluous - you can remove them if you want. Edge level, area select in the same way as for the vertices, but you'll notice that you have vertical edges selected as well. Alt+area select those edges to delect them.
Now for the fun bit - on the selection rollout you'll see 5 buttons for Vertex, Edge etc - these perform the same function as the ones in the stack (and the 1 through 5 digit shortcuts) but with 1 useful extra feature. If you Ctrl+Click them, they select (in our case) the Vertices (or edges) associated with the selected edges (or vertices), so Ctrl-Click the Vertex button. Click (normally, without control) the Edge button again, Click Remove, click the Vertex button, Remove. This just helps keep the poly count down a little bit.
You can now turn on NURMS as I did, or apply Meshsmooth or turbosmooth.
If anyone else wants to comment on this, tell me there's a much easier way, or point out any glaring errors - feel free 😛
Interesting work, Steve, how many polys?
Made this in nine steps using PowerNURBS (6920 polys).
Made this in nine steps using PowerNURBS (6920 polys).
It certainly shows you have some depth of understanding of how Max works.
The Boolean issue is really something that is centralized with Max, using PowerNURBS,
Boolean is a standard tool and though there can be issues on occasion, normally it is without complication.
I used common extrusion and Boolean in my latest example and is very clean.
Edit: I selected the top face and ran the Fillet tool and got the results seen.
The Boolean issue is really something that is centralized with Max, using PowerNURBS,
Boolean is a standard tool and though there can be issues on occasion, normally it is without complication.
I used common extrusion and Boolean in my latest example and is very clean.
Edit: I selected the top face and ran the Fillet tool and got the results seen.
Not sure, Steve, just hit F3 for showing the mesh.
Here it is with the solid showing too, there aren't any other lines to see.
If I collapse it to a mesh it gets ugly.
Here it is with the solid showing too, there aren't any other lines to see.
If I collapse it to a mesh it gets ugly.
FWIW... I got this via attaching spline circles, add bevel mod, add Subdivide mod then Meshsmooth. Had to noodle around w/ mod settings to kill the usual artifacts, but I was surprised to get rid of them. 9500 faces tho... Max vers 9.
16410_bJDTwmc23koYZ85pEWhV.zip
