Creating the Basic Apple Shape

Modeling an Apple

Completing the Apple

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials >  Modeling Tutorials > Modeling an Apple > 

Improving the Shape of the Apple

The Taper modifier produced a rough reshaping of the apple’s original sphere. To achieve more realism, you will collapse the sphere into an editable mesh and use Soft Selection to adjust the transition between selected and unselected areas.

Shape the lower half of the apple:

What you see in the viewports is a tapered wireframe of the whole apple. For more detailed modeling, you need to select only part of the apple, such as the lower half. By collapsing the sphere to an editable mesh, you can make a soft sub-object selection.

1. With the apple selected, go to the Modify panel > modifier stack display (below the Modifier List), right-click the object name, and then choose Collapse All. Click Yes in the Warning dialog.
   TipIf you are unsure about collapsing the stack, click Hold/Yes instead. You can revert the scene to the current state by selecting Edit > Fetch from the menu bar.

   The tapered sphere becomes an editable mesh.

   TipYou can also convert a selected object to an editable mesh in the active viewport by right-clicking the object and in the quad menu > Transform quadrant > Convert To > Convert To Editable Mesh.
2. In the stack display, click the plus sign (+) next to Editable Mesh to expand its sub-object levels.

   

3. Choose Vertex from the level list.

   In the viewports, the vertices appear, highlighted in blue.

4. Activate the Left viewport.
5. Click Zoom Extents All in the viewport navigation controls.

   The apple is enlarged in three viewports.

6. In the Front or Left viewport, drag from outside the sphere to make a dotted box around the bottom two or three rows of vertices of the apple. As you release to complete the box, the selection is made, and the vertices turn red.

   This technique is called region-select. It’s the most common method for making sub-object selections.

   

Name the sub-object selection:

With hundreds of vertices or faces, sub-object selections are often hard to re-create exactly. So it’s a good idea to give these selections a name you can recognize later. Any selection (object or sub-object) can be named and retrieved in 3ds Max. As your modeling skills develop, you’ll begin to recognize the advantages of named selection sets.

• On the main toolbar, toward the right side of the interface, you’ll find a blank list. This is where you name the current selection. In this case, type in bottom of apple and press Enter.

  This selection name is stored with the file.

  You might have many named selections on a single object, but when you return to the Vertex level of the editable mesh you will see only bottom of apple in the list. At this level, you could make multiple selections and give them each a different name. You could then experiment with which selection works best for the modeling effect you want.

Use Soft Selection to blend changes to your mesh:

The Soft Selection setting helps the selected region blend with the rest of the object.

1. In the Modify panel, scroll to and open the Soft Selection rollout.

   You can scroll any command panel by dragging the hand cursor that appears in blank areas of the panel. Click to open the rollout.

2. Turn on Use Soft Selection.

   The vertices and edges are now displayed in a graduated color ramp.

   

3. Reduce the Soft Selection Falloff setting using the spinner, and watch the viewport shading change until only the lower half of the apple is affected. The upper edges are now all white.