3ds Max – a Modifiers war: Loft VS Lathe!!

A couple of days ago I was browsing through Tutorialized and and found this amazing Umbrella tutorial for 3ds Max. Very simple yet very informative, it offers another – and I'd dare say – more creative way of modeling.

I actually did model an umbrella, but on the way I realized that a second part of this tutorial is a perfect way to model many other things.


So I've made this Wooden Candle Stick.

It took me about 15 minutes to make it (sounds like a part of a 5 min cake recipe) – no prior sketches, just playing with dots.
I could, of course, use Spline + Lathe Modifier, but this way was more fun.

To model a Candle itself I highly recommend to used this Candle Video tutorial – but you must register before you download the video.

Making of Wooden Candle Stick with 3ds Max

Today we will create a Wooden Candle Stick using a simple method of Loft Scaling.

1. Go to Create panel: Shapes and draw a line in Front view and Circle in Top view.

Choose Line and go to Rendering Drop Down list to change Radial Sides to 20.



2. Choose Circle and go to Create: Compound objects: Loft
3. In Creation Drop Down list choose Get Path and choose Line.



And now the fun part begins!

4. Choose the figure you’ve just created.
5. Go to Modify panel. In Deformation Drop Down list go to Scale.
6. Explore the Scale Deformation(x) window and start adding, moving and deleting points.



After I finished modeling my Candle Stick the Scale Graph looked like this.



7. For Wooden material press M and use these settings.



8. Add 3 Omni lights around your model and adjust its parameters.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.