In this tutorial we will for the first time get into the animation process inside 3ds Max and create a changing advertisement using the tools available inside 3ds Max. The tutorial will start with creating the appropriated shapes for the actual advertisement board which is made from two main parts. The first part is just a frame which is holding the second part which are panels in a shape of a triangle on which are applied the actual images or advertisement. The main objects would be made using the poly-modelling technique and this part of the tutorial will be very quick and easy. After creating the shapes for the advertisement we will start the animating process. Here you have actually two options how to make it; either using the manual method where you would be moving and rotating the separate parts or using the inbuilt MAXScript language which will do the work for you. Of course we will choose the second option because the way how it’s made using the second option is much more interesting and even more challenging. The MAXScript allows you to code a set of instruction by which you can use all available tools, methods and options available in 3ds Max.

If you are a new user of 3ds max or an experienced one you know that if you want to improve your workflow you need to see inside the application a bit more. Every application can be used in a so called general way where you just use the basic functions for your purpose, but if you want to get from it the maximum you have to know something extra. With just some extra knowledge you can improve your viewport navigation, tools selection or optimize the time for test renders. There is a lot of ways how to improve your modelling or rendering skills but as by any other software you should first improve the skill needed to handle the application itself. I will focus on the default install of 3ds max which include also MentalRay and not on any third party tools, plugins or renderers.

Everyone who used Photoshop for some time knows that the features and the possibilities which are included inside Photoshop are limited just by your imagination. Literally you can do almost everything and these include also some advanced photo manipulations. In this tutorial we will take a closer look on how to merge two images together and create an absolutely new image with a new content. For this purpose i choose two different animals which we will merge together; a lizard and a hippo. The final image should be a transformation of these both animals into a “LizaroHipp” a lizard with the head of a hippo. To be able to do this first we need some reference images. The reference images should have something common to able to merge them. In our case was the main factor the head position and rotation of the hippo. After we will have these images we will start the process of merging and place the hippo head into the image of the lizard on a separate layer.

In this end part of the „two stage Missile“ tutorial we will prepare our model for texturing and also create the textures using Photoshop. In the parts before „part1“ and „part2“ we were focusing on the model itself, we were able to model all the details and major parts of the missile and as well the electronics and release mechanism for the secondary missiles. Here we will start by adjusting the UVW coordinates to our model. At first we will focus on the main missile, by this we will apply and create a UVW map which at the end we will render and move to Photoshop. This „mask“ will be used to properly adjust the texture which we will be creating and also help us as a guide to place all the textures into the right place. After adjusting the UVWs and the materials IDs we will straight jump to Photoshop and start creating our textures. The first one will be the main missile were we use and combine different textures from real world planes and aircrafts and with some blending options and adjustment place these parts on the mask which we did before and so create a nice looking texture which can be easily applied to our model. Using the same methods we will also create the rest of the textures and also we will use already made parts from the textures before and so create a new texture very fast and without the end to create the repeating layers and fragments one more time.