Firstly, we had to convert our object (a box) to an editable poly to apply the techniques. The 'connect' tool was then applied by selecting an edge, turning it into a ring and then adjusting the specifications of the connect tool to the appropriate amount.
I have not used this tool before and wish I had known about it last year - it's very useful for minimising the amount of polygons and vertexes needed and you can be very specific with the dimensions for the area that you are creating. This will come in handy when we begin the project and start making buildings etc. in the scenery. In this case, we are using the tool to make a door and window to a house.
Next, the extrude and inset tool were used once the polygon had been selected. This (after the settings were adjusted) allowed a door frame to be made. When I do this part in the main project, I will make sure that I have a notepad handy to write down the exact numbers for the specifications in case I want other parts of the building/other buildings to have the same specifications so that the scenery is consistent. The same technique that was used for the door was also applied to the rest of the front of the building to make a window.
Next, we learnt about smoothing techniques. This is another new technique for me as my objects last year didn't require smoothing (being mainly buildings and scenery) so there was no need for me to research this part of 3DS Max.
We started testing out smoothing techniques by creating a simple sphere that got converted to an editable poly. Then smoothing groups were selected to be applied. We selected half and applied one smoothing group, then selected the other half and applied a different group. This caused the render to have a slightly different colour due to the different groups. To combat this, a selection from each half of the sphere, where they met in the middle, was selected. The two smoothing groups that had been chosen were then both applied to the selection, so that the render came out without the clear distinguishment between the two different groups.
I then went back to finishing off my little house. A roof was added using a pryramid for the upstairs section (which needed to have some polygons changed to get the correct shape, once again using the techniques learnt in lesson) and the roofing tiles were added by extruding a plane. Another small window was added to the upstairs using the extruding/inset tools again.
Smoothing was applied to the top part of my house (the top window and the roof) just to see how it would look, but it is definitely not needed. Maybe for the roof as not all roofs are completely angular, but the rest of the building definitely didn't need it.
I then decided to extend my house. Using the clone tool and by stretching it, the smaller house formed a basis for the rest of the house and as a result became just a small part of the frontier.
The final technqiue that I learnt during the lesson (another completely new technique) was using the Chamfer tool.
This tool allows you to round the edges of objects. As certain buildings have design that involves corners being rounded or pillars of many shapes, this tool will be useful when I create some of the buildings for our scene. Using polygons, the tool will round the selected edge or polygon, so when smoothing is also applied, this technique looks very effective.
Learning all of these techniques today and recapping on others in more detail has made me realise that there are so many simple things that can be used that can make such a big difference in the final project and the render size. Many of these techniques would have been very useful last year and were easily learnt. I will definitely put in more effort this year to find different ways of doing certain things to reduce polygons and vertexes. Although I was happy with the end result of my project last year, this tutorial session showed me that if I ask for some help or just look up in a book/online different techniques then new useful skills can be learnt and save me lots of time in the long run.
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