This tutorial needs you to understand basic use of 3dsmax. 3D designer is not always creating character, car, fantasy enviroment, space ship in unknown planet or so on. There's a branch in 3D career that lets you create object you've seen everyday. Usually, you model object for industrial or mechanical purpose. You may model bolt, bottle, machine part or anything similar. Today, I bring you a tutorial for creating simple object. Bolt and nut. Although these are simple object, you need a lot of tricks to create these models. Therefore, you will learn a lot of techniques in this tutorial. Hope this tutorial is useful for your career. Who knows, maybe you choose to become 3D product designer in the future.



This is what you are going to create: 1. First, we are going to create a bolt. In Command Panel activate Create>Shapes. Click Helix button and create Helix in Top viewport. Use Radius 1=50, Radius 2=50, Height=150, Turns=8, and activate CCW. Helix is used to create spiral spline like shown in image below. Don't forget to activate Edged Faces view in Perspective viewport (by pressing F4 in keyboard).

2. Apply Extrude modifier to Helix. Use Amount=18.75. Using this amount you'll get a tube shape. How do I get this number? Remember, Helix height=150, Turns=8, thus 150/8=18.75.
3. Although tube is looking good, actually it contains double vertices in most places. In viewport, right click object and choose Convert to>Convert to Editable Poly. Go to Modify tab. Activate Vertex selection. Select all object vertices. In Edit Vertices rollout, click Settings button right next to Weld. A small dialog box is opened. You can read number of vertices before and after welding. Just click OK to weld vertices. Right now, save your progress to different file. You'll need this file later.

This tutorial needs you to understand basic use of 3dsmax. In previous tutorial (Part 1), we have created a basic shape of bolt using Helix. Now, we are going to continue this lesson by adjusting this shape.



1. Continue your previous lesson. Activate Vertex selection. Then, click Select And Move Tool. In Perspective viewport, rotate view until you have view like image below. Select one vertex (shown in red dot) and jot down its coordinate in Z axis. Then, jot down Z axis position from another vertex. You have 2 coordinate: Z=18.75 and Z=150.

2. Change selection to Edge. Then, select all edges in object (Ctrl A). In Edit Geometry rollout, click Slice Plane button. Make sure Select And Move Tool is still selected. Enter 18.75 in input box at bottom of the screen. Slice plane will move to Z=18.75. Then, click Slice button. Repeat the same process with Z=150. At the end, the object will be sliced in top and bottom.
3. Change to Polygon selection. Select all polygons above and below sliced area (look at image below). Ctrl+click to select more than one polygons. You have to select carefully, because there are tiny polygons at the circled area. Finally delete those polygons. After deletion, you'll get a neat tube.
4. Change selection to Border. Select border at top of tube. Using Select And Move Tool, hold Shift while move this border up. New polygons will be created during this process. Do this process 4 times. Look at image below for reference.
5. Activate Polygon selection. Select polygons in top area of the tube (look at image below). Using Select and Uniform Scale, enlarge these polygons.
6. Change to Vertex selection. Select vertices in top most area. In Selection rollout, you should see 80 vertices selected. Then, in Edit Geometry rollout click Make Planar Z. All vertices will have the same height. Repeat this process to the vertices below (look at image). You should also select 80 vertices and click Make Planar Z.
7. Change selection to Edge. Select all vertical edges (look at image below). And in Edit Edges rollout, click Settings button right next to Connect. A small dialog box will open. Make sure Segments=1 and Slide=-85. You can modify Slide value yourselft, but make sure new edges are created in bottom part of vertical edges.
8. Finally, select all vertical edges in top area of tube (look at image below). Press Delete in keyboard. Next, you will finish this bolt model.

1. De-activate all sub-object selection. In Command Panel, go to Create>Geometry. Create a cylinder in Top viewport. Make sure its Radius=85, Height=60 amd Sides=6. Create this cylinder at the same center of tube. Then, move this cylinder to the top area of tube (look at image below). Convert cylinder to Editable Poly. Go to Modify tab. Activate Polygon selection. Select polygons at top and bottom cap, then delete them.

2. Change to Edge selection. Select 2 edges at the side of cylinder (look at image below). In Edit Edges rollout, click Settings button right next to Connect. In opened dialog box, enter Segments=6. Click OK. Six vertical edges will be created. Repeat this process to all other sides of cylinder.
3. Now, let's modify cylinder. Activate Vertex selection. Select 6 vertices at each corner of cylinder (select in top most area only). To select more than one vertext, hold Ctrl while selecting. In Soft Selection rollout, activate Use Soft Selection. Use Falloff=46, Pinch=0.6. Then in Left or Front viewport, move these vertices down a little bit. When finished, de-activate Soft Selection.
4. De-activate all sub-object selection. Make sure one object is selected. In Edit Geometry rollout, click Attach button, then click other object in viewport. Here, you combined 2 objects as one.
Now, we need to close holes. Activate Border selection. Hold Ctrl and select 2 borders at top area of bolt. Then, in Edit Borders rollout, click Bridge button. One hole is now closed.
5. Using Bridge, close another hole at the bottom part of bolt head. Then, select border at the most bottom part of bolt. Click Cap button to close this hole.
6. Now, we are going to close hole on top of bolt head. Select border. Activate Select And Uniform Scale Tool. Hold Shift and scale down this border. Use Cap to close the hole. Then, using Select And Move Tool, in Left or Front viewport, move this border down a little bit..
7. Now, let's move to the final modification. Change selection to Edge. Select all spiral edges. You can easily select all spiral edges, only by selecting one edge and click Loop in Selection rollout. Be careful, sometimes you have to manually select or de-select edges in circled area. Rotate view in Perspective viewport to make sure the only spiral edges are selected.
8. In Edit Edges rollout, click Settings button right next to Extrude. In opened dialog box, enter Extrusion Height=10 and Extrusion Base Width=6. Click OK.
3. Last step, click Settings button right next to Chamfer. In opened dialog box, enter Chamfer Amount=4. Click OK.
3. De-activate all sub-object selection. Your bolt model is finished. Save. You'll need this when you are going to create nut.

2. Use Slice Plane to slice at those 2 points. Then delete polygons above and below sliced area. Refer to Part 2 tutorial on how to do it.
When finished, you'll have a tube. Change selection to polygons and select all polygons on this object. Next, in Edit Polygons rollout, click Flip button to backflip their normals.
3. Change selection to Border. Select two borders at top and bottom area. Then, using Select And Uniform Scale Tool, hold Shift and drag a little bit to outer side of tube. Look at image below for reference. When finished, de-activate all sub-object selection.
4. From main menu, choose File>Merge to combine model from another file. Choose a file. Use your previously saved bold model file or this file. After bolt model is available in viewport, make sure bolt model is selected, and go to Modify Tab. Activate Polygon selection. Select polygons at bolt head area (look at image below). Then invert the selection (Ctrl+I). Delete those selected polygons. After that, select all polygons and move them closer to tube object (its base should share the same height as tube base). You may need move vertices at the top area to make object height is less than the tube.
5. De-activate all sub-object selection. Attach one object to another. When finished, activate Border selection. Select 2 borders around the hole and click Bridge in Edit Border rollout. The hole is closed now. You need to apply Bridge again to close hole in the bottom part.
6. Next, change selection to Edge. Select all spiral edges. For easy selection, select one edge and click Loop in selection rollout. You may need to manually select or de-select edges in circled area. Then apply Extrude, with Extrusion Height= -10 and Extrusion Base Width=6. Next, apply Chamfer with amount=4. When finished, de-activate all sub-object selection.
7. Nut model is finished.
8. Sample of rendered bolt and nut model..