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Our recent Stunning Interiors roundup got a lot of people talking about interior rendering tutorials, and today
we’re happy to bring in Flavius Cristea to discuss his process when creating stunning interior renders using
3Ds Max. From the modelling, through material creation to the final rendering process, this 2-day tutorial is a
great insight into the art of Arch-Vis Interiors.
Step 1
Since we’re aiming to make a realistic interior scene, the scale of the objects is very important. To keep things
accurate, go to Customize > Units Setup and select the Metric system, and then choose Centimetersfrom the
drop-down. Throughout this tutorial I’ll be giving you the values that I used in the scene, however don;t feel
you have to match these exactly!
Step 2 – The walls
Go into the Top View and create a rectangle ( Length:540 cm , Width:450 cm) . Right click on the rectangle
and go to Convert to > Convert to Editable Spline. While you still have the rectangle ( which is now editable
as a spline ) selected, go to your Modifier tab , go into sub-object mode ( click the small plus sign) and
select all 4 splines. Scroll down until you see the Outline button ( it’s in the geometry tab from the Editable
Spline option). Type -20 and hit enter to add width to the walls.
Tip: this is a very common technique when creating the 2d layout of the walls. Whilst this is a very simple
example, if you have a more complex floor plan simply use the line to trace them and then set an Outline equal
to the walls’ width. The value of -20 and not +20 was used in order to ensure that the outline will be made
outwards and not inwards from the initial shape.
Step 3
Right click on the rectangle, and go to Convert to > Convert to Editable Poly. Now go to polygon sub-object
mode by hitting 4 on your keyboard, select all of the polygons and extrude them with a value of 250 cm.
Create a box ( L:370 cm , W: 50 cm, H:225 cm ) and move it so that it intersects one of the walls, as seen in
the pic below. Now select the walls, and go to Compound objects > Pro Boolean. In the settings rollout,
clickPick Operand B and click the box object we just created.
Step 5 – The Floor & Ceiling
Make another box as large as the room (I made mine a bit larger so that I’m sure it intersects the walls – L: 541
cm W:451 cm H:12 cm). This is your floor object. Now make a copy of the box and move it up. You know
have a ceiling too!
Step 6 – The Window
Now make another box as large as the one we used in the boolean operation to create the window, but make
sure this one has a width of around 5 cm – slightly thinner than the wall itself. Now convert it to anEditable
Poly as before.. Select the two large polygons (be careful to select the backside one as well), right click
and Inset them with a value of 4 cm. Now delete the two selected polys.
Go into border sub-object mode by pressing 3 on your keyboard, select the two open borders, and click the
bridge button to connect them with a loop of polys. Make two chamfered boxes and place them as seen in the
picture below to create the divisions in the window frame. Finally, make 3 more boxes with a width of about
0.5 cm and place them into the window frame to form the panes of glass.
Step 7 – Wall Detail
Select the all of the wall polys. Now go into vertex mode and click on the Splice Plane button. Adjust the slice
plane and make the cuts as seen in the picture below. To exit the slice plane mode, click on the Slice
Planebutton once more. Finally select the indicated polygon and extrude it inwards with a value of around 7
cm.
Info: You have made these cuts to create some guide geometry which will be used to add different materials to
the walls, and also to place a lamp behind the bed.
Step 8 -The Bed
The bed is a fairly simple object, with the exception of the blanket – it’s really only a set of chamfered boxes.
Box1 has these values – L:3.5 cm; W:270 cm; H:55 cm. I then set the Fillet to 0.15 cm and the Fillet Segs:3 to
give us some rounded edges.
Box2 had these values – L:220 cm; W:170 cm; H:9 cm; Fillet:0.15 cm and Fillet Segs:3. Finally, Box3 had
these values : L:5cm; W:5cm; H:13cm, Fillet:0.15cm and Fillet Segs:3. Place the boxes as seen in the picture
below.
Info: Obviously, I didn’t just come up with those numbers out of nowhere! I modeled the bed using photo
reference, but as I didn’t have the actual dimensions I went on the internet, looked for a similar bed and took
the exact size only for the main piece (Box 2). The other sections were modeled by simply eye-balling and
proportion comparison with the main piece. It’s much faster to do it this way than to go in and type in the sizes
of every component part. Also, I’ve used chamfered boxes instead of plain boxes simply because, in the real
world, almost nothing has perfect, sharp edges.
Step 9
Now make a chamfered box ( L:205 cm, W:145 cm, H:8.5 cm Fillet:2.4 cm). This is going to be the mattress.
You won’t add any further details to it as it will be completely covered by the blanket.
Step 10 – The Blanket Prep
Use the line tool to create some random lines as shown. Attach them all together using the Attach Mult.button,
and then click on Enable in Renderer and Enable in Viewport. Set the Thickness to 3cm and then move the
lines up so that they sit just on top of the mattress.
Info: In the next few steps you are going to use the Cloth Modifier to quickly and easily create a nice looking
blanket. The lines we just created (which are now actually 3d objects) will be used as geometry onto which the
cloth will fold.
Step 29
Shift drag the line on the Z-axis to make 2 more copies of it copies of it, and then attach the splines together
(look back at step 10 to see how to do this if you can’t remember). Now add a CrossSection modifier, and set
the Option to Smooth. On top of this, add a Surface modifier and set the Threshold to 1.0 cm.
Info: Some things might go wrong here. Make sure you make the copies of the line in the order I showed you
below or the CrossSection modifier will not work properly. This modifier creates a skin across multiple
splines, and it works by connecting the vertices of 3D splines together. When adding the Surface modifier, you
might need to flip the normals if they are facing the other way around. Also, the Threshold has been set to a
lower value so that it won’t weld vertices we don’t want welded! You can set the Steps to 4 or 5 to smooth out
the entire shape.
P.S. – The info above actually comes from Autodesk Help (F1). If you don’t understand anything I’ve written
so far, try it out! It’s the best reference/help manual I’ve ever seen.
Step 30
The curtain is ok at the moment, but it’s a little too perfect, a little too mechanical. Click the Show End
Resultbutton, and go into Line vertex mode. Now convert all vertices from Smooth to Bezier so you’ll have
much more control. Zoom in (quite a lot), select each independent vertex, and move it around and scale it to
change the bezier tangent.
If you move the vertices around at the bottom, you’ll notice how the shape changes in realtime.
Tips: This can be quite a long and daunting step but please, take your time. You can move the verts in any
direction you want, scale the handles, and perhaps even rotate them. However, notice that while you work
with Show End Result, CrossSection and Surface modifier turned on, you won’t be able to move more than 1
vertex at a time.
Step 31
Now make a copy of your curtain and then move the verts around on the copy so that you won’t have two
identical curtains.
Info: As you can probably see, you haven’t modeled the top part, where the curtains actually hang on to. That
is because we’ll position the camera is such way that you won’t see that. So, if you can’t see it, don’t model it!