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You can also set the Hose Shape to Round, Rectangular, or D-Section. Figure 5.25 shows a flexible hose object bound to two sphere objects.

FIGURE 5.25

The Hose object flexes between its two bound objects.

Tutorial: Creating a bendable straw

If you've ever found yourself modeling a juice box (or drinking from a juice box and wondering, “How would I model this bendable straw?”), then this tutorial is for you. The nice part about the Hose primitive is that once you've created the model, you can reposition the straw, and the bend changes as needed, just like a real straw.

To create a bendable straw, follow these steps:

1. Open the Bendable straw.max file from the Chap 05 directory on the CD.

This file includes two Tube primitives to represent the top and bottom portions of a straw. I've oriented their pivot points so the Z-axis points toward where the Hose primitive will go.

2. Select Create⇒Extended Primitives⇒Hose, and drag in the Top viewport close to where the two straws meet. Select the Bound to Object Pivots option, click on the Pick Top Object button, and select the top Tube object. Then click on the Pick Bottom Object button, and select the bottom Tube object. This step positions the Hose object between the two Tube pieces.

3. In the Hose Parameters rollout, set the Tension for the Top object to 35 and the Tension for the bottom object to 10.0. Set the Segments to 40, the Starts value to 0, the Ends value to 100, the Cycles to 10, and the Diameter to 24. Make sure that the Renderable option is enabled, and enable the Round Hose option with a Diameter of 20.0.

Figure 5.26 shows the completed bendable straw created using a Hose primitive.

FIGURE 5.26

Use the Hose primitive to connect two objects.

Modifying object parameters

Primitive objects provide a good starting point for many of the other modeling types. They also provide a good way to show off parameter-based modeling.

All objects have parameters. These parameters help define how the object looks. For example, consider the primitive objects. The primitive objects contained in Max are parametric. Parametric objects are mathematically defined, and you can change them by modifying their parameters. The easiest object modifications to make are simply changing these parameters. For example, a sphere with a radius of 4 can be made into a sphere with a radius of 10 by simply typing a 10 in the Radius field. The viewports display these changes automatically when you press the Enter key.

Note

When an object is first created, its parameters are displayed in the Parameters rollout of the Create panel. As long as the object remains the current object, you can modify its parameters using this rollout. After you select a different tool or object, the Parameters rollout is no longer accessible from the Create panel, but if you select the object and open the Modify panel, all the parameters can be changed for the selected object. •

Tutorial: Filling a treasure chest with gems

I haven't found many treasure chests lately, but if I remember correctly, they are normally filled with bright, sparkling gems. In this tutorial, you'll fill the chest with a number of Hedra primitives and alter the object properties in the Modify panel to create a diverse offering of gems.

To create a treasure chest with many unique gems, follow these steps:

1. Open the Treasure chest of gems.max file from the Chap 05 directory on the CD.

This file includes a simple treasure chest model.

2. Select Create⇒Extended Primitives⇒Hedra to open the Extended Primitives subcategory in the Create panel. At the top of the Object Type rollout, enable the AutoGrid option and select the Hedra button.

The AutoGrid option creates all new objects on the surface of other objects.

3. Create several Hedra objects.

The size of the objects doesn't matter at this time.

4. Open the Modify panel, and select one of the Hedra objects.

5. Alter the values in the Parameters rollout to produce a nice gem.

6. Repeat Step