From the course: 3ds Max: Tips, Tricks and Techniques
Combining splines with shape Booleans - 3ds Max Tutorial
From the course: 3ds Max: Tips, Tricks and Techniques
Combining splines with shape Booleans
then you've probably worked with, or at least heard of, Booleans, named after George Boole, the mathematician who developed symbolic logic. Booleans allow us to add, subtract, and find the intersection between shapes. Today we're going to look at shape Booleans. 3ds Max has had 3D Booleans for a long time, And I've imported that logo already and made quite a lot of adjustments to it. I scaled it up at the sub-object level, I made sure that all the parts were legal for Boolean operations, meaning that they're all closed shapes that lie on the same plane. And, in some cases, I actually had to replace the geometry that came from the Illustrator file with all new geometry, in order to ensure that the Boolean tool worked properly. So I've done all of that in advance. Before we even get to this point we need to have legal shapes for the Boolean. Let's get in closer in the top view, click in there, and expand that with Alt W, and note that I've also extended the boundaries of some of these shapes, as is appropriate to a Boolean. I'll get in closer on this lower right corner, here, and we can see that one of these shapes overlaps the other. What I'm going to do is I'm going to subtract the area that's enclosed by this orange shape, here. Let's take a look at the original 2D logo for reference. I've got that as a PNG file. Go to the File menu and choose View Image File, and in the current project scene asset's images you'll find logo reference dot PNG, open that up. And what we're trying to accomplish with our shape Boolean is to subtract the negative space, as represented by the white page or paper, here. Shape Booleans are binary, on and off, and we're not able to do things like differentiate shades of gray here. In other words, we're not going to be able to do anything with this circle with the shape Booleans. If we did need that circle represented in our final shape, then we would need to use other methods to accomplish that, for example, I could use a 3D Boolean just to cut out that little area so it was shallower than the rest of the extrusion. But for now we're going to ignore that circle and we're just going to concentrate on finding this negative space. We'll start with the outer parallelogram. Select that, and it's the logo object. Go over to the Create panel, to Shapes, and from the pulldown list choose Compound Shapes, and there's currently only one in there, ShapeBoolean. Click that button and the logo object is converted to a Boolean, and it's listed as one of the operands, here. The shape Boolean looks and acts pretty much exactly like the standard 3D Boolean, so techniques are transferable between those two. What we're going to do here is have nested Booleans, so that we can, for example, add, or sum, or union a whole bunch of objects together and then take that sum and subtract it from another object. We've only got one operand in our list, here, so let's start adding them. I'm going to get in a little bit closer, here. Click the Add Operands button, and then click on the circle in the center and it disappears, and that's because it's been unioned, or added, to the existing shape. The union operation is an or. It returns a positive value for any area that is enclosed in either one or the other operand. We want, in this case, to subtract that circle. So with the circle selected in the operands list, click subtract, and now we have a circle nested inside the larger parallelogram. And if we extruded this now, we would see that this area in between those two is solid. Okay, that's a simple subtraction. Now the thing you might think to do next would simply be to subtract these other areas here, this turbine pole and these blades. But if you subtracted them directly, you might not have good results. In fact, it might actually fail. But what I found works is if we union all of those parts together, or add them all together, and then perform a subtraction on that sum. So that's what we're going to do. To accomplish that, we'll make a sub Boolean in our operands list. Right-click on the circle, and choose Create New Boolean. an operation of union. We're going to add it with all these other elements here. The Add Operands button is still enabled, so we can go around and select these. Click on the blade, and it's added, but not in the right place. It's added at the top level, or the same level as the logo and the subtract. We want it to be subordinate to the subtract. We want the blade and the circle to be unioned and then that result to be subtracted. So click and hold the mouse down, and drag that Blade 1 directly below the circle. And it's a little bit difficult to tell, but there are actually two blue lines. Drag it and release on the upper blue line until Blade 1 is subordinate to Subtract. And now we have the result we want. Circle and Blade 1 are being summed, or unioned, and then that sum is being subtracted from the logo. Let's keep going. Add Operands is still enabled. Click on the next blade, Blade 2. Drag it up into the Subtract sub-Boolean. Click on Blade 3. Once again, drag it into that sub-Boolean. Click on the turbine pole, and once again drag that into the Subtract sub-Boolean. All right, we're doing very well so far. Now we want to add back these little parts here. We have a couple of areas at the center of that turbine that we want to be positive space rather than negative, that's what all of these ovals are for. So let's get a little bit closer. I'll select the first oval, which is Oval Large, and it's added to the operands. And I do want it to be a union, but I also want it to be subtracted by something else. So we'll make another sub-Boolean here. Right-click on Oval Large, choose Create New Boolean. And right-click and rename it, call it Union 1. Now, that Union 1 has the operand type of Union. Oval Large also is of the type Union. Add Operands is still enabled. Let's select the other oval, which is the Oval Large Subtract. And it's defaulted to the union type as well. Let's drag it up into the Union 1 sub-Boolean. So it's now subordinate to Union 1. Select it again, and switch it over to the Subtract operation. Now Oval Large Subtract is subtracting from Oval Large, and then that result is being unioned with the logo. All right, so we'll do the last ones here, and that's Oval Small, and we want it to be a union, once again. Right-click it and Create New Boolean. Right-click it and rename it, call it Union 2. And it's of the type Union. Oval Small is also of the type Union. We're adding our last operand, which is the Oval Small Subtract. Drag it up into Union 2, click it again to make sure it's selected. And switch its operation over to Subtract. And now we have two crescent shapes, which in our final extrude will be positive, they will actually be solid. Okay, so let's take a look. We can turn off Add Operands. Dialing back, if you go to the four viewport layout with Alt W, I've got a type object here. Select that, go into the Modify panel, and there's an extrude already on it. Right-click that extrude, copy it. Go to the logo object, and at the top of it, stack, right-click, and paste instanced. And now we've got our 3D logo, made just perfectly with shape Booleans. Let's just review the logic of that just once again. I'll select the logo, go into its Modify stack to Shape Boolean, and once again, we have the logo, which is the outer frame. And that is being added to the end result. Then we're subtracting something, and what are we subtracting? We're subtracting all of these shapes added together. Circle, Blade 1, Blade 2, Blade 3, and Turbine Pole. All of those are of the type Union. So they're all added together, and then that result So they're all added together, and then that result is subtracted from the logo. is subtracted from the logo. Then we have two more unions down here Then we have two more unions down here to add these two little crescent shapes back in. to add these two little crescent shapes back in. Union 1 is composed of Oval Large, and then a subtracter. Union 1 is composed of Oval Large, and then a subtracter. Oval Large Subtract removes some volume from Oval Large, Oval Large Subtract removes some volume from Oval Large, and then a result is added at this level, and then a result is added at this level, at this Union 1. at this Union 1. And the same goes for Union 2, the same process. And the same goes for Union 2, the same process. Once again we take an oval, we subtract from it, Once again we take an oval, we subtract from it, and what's left gets added back to the overall shape. and what's left gets added back to the overall shape. All right, that's a rundown of shape Booleans, All right, that's a rundown of shape Booleans, and it shows the power of the new Boolean engine and it shows the power of the new Boolean engine in 3ds Max. in 3ds Max.
Practice while you learn with exercise files
Download the files the instructor uses to teach the course. Follow along and learn by watching, listening and practicing.
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q1_2018.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q1_2019.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q2_2018.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q2_2019.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q3_2017.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q3_2018.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q4_2017.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q4_2018.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q3_2019.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q4_2019.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q1_2020.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q2_2020.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q3_2020.zip
- Ex_Files_3DSMax_Q4_2020.zip
Contents
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Modeling a floor plan from a 2D drafting document13m 36s
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Modeling terrain with Displace space warp11m 18s
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Projecting UVs with the Camera Map world-space modifier7m 46s
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Capturing shadows with Arnold Shadow Matte map10m 43s
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Rendering compositing passes with Arnold AOVs9m 6s
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Mechanical rigging with IK and the LookAt controller9m 16s
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Modulating animation with Multiply and Ease Curves13m 9s
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Working with audio and the AudioFloat controller12m 8s
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Automating with Expression controllers10m 13s
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Real-time animation with the Motion Capture utility10m 17s
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Stylized rendering with Scanline Ink 'n Paint8m 16s
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Getting started with the Max Creation Graph13m 25s
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Modifying a Max Creation Graph tool12m 27s
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Sculpting a terrain with Texture Object Mask9m 33s
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Building a road with Conform space warp11m 12s
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Shading a landscape with Arnold Curvature14m 59s
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Creating custom attributes with the Parameter Editor9m 1s
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Driving animation curves with the Reaction controller6m 56s
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Rigging a camera-facing matte painting10m 41s
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Aligning a camera to a background with Perspective Match10m 32s
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Projecting a photo to proxy geometry with Camera Map11m 49s
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Automation with wire parameters and manipulators8m 18s
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Converting scenes for different renderers10m 52s
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Rendering light groups with Arnold AOVs10m 11s
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Graphing scene conditions with State Sets Compositor9m 34s
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Introduction to 3ds Max Fluids10m 18s
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Modeling with the Motion Field Space Warp9m 55s
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Non-destructive model adjustment with Linked Xform9m 23s
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Animating sub-objects with Linked Xform10m 11s
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Customize and cycle Path Constraint animation5m 54s
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Generate complex motion with Waveform Controllers10m 56s
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Illuminate a scene with an Arnold Mesh Light5m 49s
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Shading with Maya maps in 3ds Max4m 32s
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Varying shader properties by object with Arnold Color Jitter5m 26s
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Render a mesh object with Arnold Standard Volume9m 47s
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Render a Point Cloud object8m 21s
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Setting track value boundaries with a limit controller4m 5s
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Drawing curves with Freehand Spline8m 41s
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Correcting intersections with Spline Overlap4m 38s
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Reducing curve detail with Optimize Spline6m 42s
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Resampling curves with Normalize Spline8m 44s
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Soft-selecting curves with Spline Influence7m 42s
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Blending curves with Spline Morph12m 15s
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Combining splines with shape Booleans10m 51s
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Approximating global illumination in Arnold13m 10s
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Rendering proxies with Arnold procedurals10m 25s
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Introduction to the Open Shading Language map11m 16s
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Basic syntax of Open Shading Language8m 24s
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Declaring OSL input and output parameters12m 53s
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Generating a fractal noise pattern in OSL9m 25s
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Iterating a for loop in OSL10m 16s
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Using the if… else conditional statement in OSL10m 9s
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Managing OSL file assets and paths10m 8s
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Accelerate Arnold rendering with adaptive sampling5m 59s
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Texturing with the Advanced Wood procedural map11m 2s
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Art directing the Advanced Wood texture map5m 16s
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Setting a fluid initial state9m 19s
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In-camera compositing with Camera Map modifier7m 8s
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Creating animation layers14m 33s
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Collaborate online with shared views6m 14s
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Rendering iridescence with Arnold Thin Film8m 17s
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Loading and saving fluid presets7m 36s
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Introduction to 3ds Max Interactive9m 15s
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Building a motion graphics rig with Data Channel10m 18s
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Creating custom project folder structures8m 28s
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Open Shading Language code editor tips and tricks8m 21s
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Spawning particles from a 3D map11m 18s
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Rendering a starfield10m 21s
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Faking GI with an Arnold ambient occlusion filter9m 4s
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Modeling with the animation Snapshot tool6m 30s
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Rendering particles with Arnold Standard Volume11m 23s
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Render Arnold volume with physical values6m 38s
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Volume indirect global illumination in Arnold7m 56s
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Removing polygon detail with Freeform Optimize6m 26s
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Transform and retime a cache with Fluid Loader7m 25s
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Rendering motion blur in Arnold10m 46s
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Drawing splines on an editable poly2m 48s
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Sketching freeform topology over a polygon mesh6m 17s
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Animating effects with Data Channel Decay6m 54s
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Animating controllers in the Material Editor7m 17s
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Painting a vertex color mask with VertexPaint9m 25s
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Drawing polygon freeform strips5m 17s
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Extruding polygon freeform branches2m 41s
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Interactive ActiveShade in a viewport4m 35s
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Fluid data channels5m 50s
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Displaying fluid data channels9m 56s
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Assigning UVW coordinates in an OSL network8m 52s
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Using named coordinate spaces in Open Shading Language (OSL)11m 27s
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Shadow group exclusion with Arnold properties5m 59s
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Erasing materials with MAXScript or UVW Remove3m 3s
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Understanding Fluid Churn and Vorticity channels6m 13s
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Rendering Fluid channels with Arnold User Data5m 56s
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Keyframe quantization and sub-frame editing with Snap Keys8m 37s
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Importing a CAD solid model as a Body Object8m 38s
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Solid model subtraction and intersection with Body Cutter4m 58s
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Solid model union with Join Bodies6m 54s
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Denoising an Arnold rendering7m 50s
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Interactive Update in the animation Curve Editor2m 54s
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Curve Editor view menu: Tips and tricks5m 33s
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Editing animation curves with the Region Keys tool4m 56s
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Combining data channels of Fluids7m 13s
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Shading per object with OSL Random by Index7m 15s
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Layering materials of Fluids6m 51s
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Render particles as Arnold primitives3m 37s
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Render PFlow particles with Arnold Shape4m 34s
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Remapping colors with Arnold Ramp RGB7m 36s
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Rendering contours with Arnold Toon7m 31s
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Mapping Arnold Toon base color8m 55s
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Controlling preview quality6m 2s
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Adding information overlays to a preview with MAXScript7m 49s
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Modeling with the updated Chamfer modifier9m 7s
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Applying a chamfer using edge weight and depth5m 4s
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Baking a map to a mesh with Assign Vertex Color9m 59s
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Generating cavity and occlusion maps with Render Surface Map6m 48s
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Baking multiple vertex color channels with VertexPaint9m 4s
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Compositing vertex color in a shading network7m 29s
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Optimizing geometry with the MultiRes modifier8m 33s
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Improving viewport performance with the Substitute modifier2m 57s
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Constructing a lighting assembly5m 24s
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Wiring parameters in a lighting assembly8m 24s
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Measuring with tape helper, the Measure Distance tool, and the Measure utility6m 39s
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Display panel tips and tricks5m 12s
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Quickly adjusting transforms and pivot point with the Transform Toolbox8m 39s
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Stacking objects with Select and Place5m 13s
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Managing objects and sub-objects with selection sets8m 17s
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Referencing scenes with containers8m 51s
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Changing inherited container content with Edit in Place8m 13s
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Locking and unlocking container parameters9m 14s
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Editing unlocked container parameters7m 16s
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Projecting splines onto surfaces with ShapeMerge6m 31s
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Analyzing and correcting mesh geometry with xView7m 29s
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Keyframing sub-objects with the Master Point controller9m 38s
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Managing scene materials with Material Explorer8m 36s
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Defining a temporary transform center with working pivot8m 23s
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Customizing keyboard shortcuts with Hotkey editor6m 56s
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Stylized rendering with OSL Halftone Dots map4m 44s
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Incorporating scene lighting in a shading network5m 20s
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Incorporating render resolution in a shading network7m 32s
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Situating geometry within an OSL HDRI environment6m 9s
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Studio lighting with HDRI lights map8m 9s
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White balance and exposure with an Arnold camera filtermap5m 11s
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Rasterizing maps with bake to texture9m 45s
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Advanced baking with bake to texture8m 26s
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Baking to physically based renderer (PBR) materials for export7m 35s
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Production rendering with Quicksilver hardware12m 11s
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Varying textures with OSL Randomized Bitmaps11m 29s
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Deforming a particle system with the Mesher compound object4m 49s
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Set up Arnold render passes with AOV Manager8m 19s
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Animating multiple tracks with Parameter Collector6m 45s
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Improving edge smoothing with Weighted Normals modifier7m 35s
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Rendering a cutaway with the Arnold Clip Geo material4m 14s
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Advanced procedural noise with Uber Noise map13m 14s
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Rendering polygon edges with OSL Wireframe map7m 32s
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Art directing the OSL Wireframe map5m 55s
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Introduction to MassFX Rigid Body dynamics7m 30s
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Setting up a MassFX Rigid Body simulation5m 14s
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Controlling a MassFX Rigid Body simulation7m 40s
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Fine-tuning a MassFX Rigid Body simulation7m 42s
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Automating secondary animation with the Flex modifier7m 2s
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Keyframing modeling commands with the Edit Poly Animate mode4m 44s
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Generating UVs with OSL projection maps5m 33s
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Retiming all keyframes in a scene with the world track6m 53s
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Snapping surfaces dynamically with MCG Ray Constraint6m 1s
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Complex sub-object selections with the Selection ribbon7m 30s
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Adding polygon edges with Paint Connect4m 33s
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Manipulating sub-objects without changing mapping with Preserve UVs3m 41s
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Hiding geometry based on distance with Viewport Clipping2m 53s
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Navigating a scene with walkthrough mode3m 55s
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Parametric soft transforms with Affect Region4m 1s
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