Starting Out

First, you'll create a medieval weapon called a mace. In this lesson, you'll learn how to add objects and change their settings.

Start the program

Start gmax by clicking its icon in Start menu > Programs > Discreet.
This is the gmax user interface. By default, it consists of four viewports surrounded by various controls and icon-based command buttons. Because you're working with a three-dimensional scene on a monitor that can show only two dimensions, it helps to be able to view the scene from several different angles at the same time.
When you first start gmax, the viewports show the scene (currently empty) from the top, left side, front, and a perspective view. The Perspective viewport gives you the most natural view of your scene, while the other, orthogonal viewports, are best suited for accurate setup.
At the right side of the interface are the tabbed Command panels, with the Create panel shown by default. You can get detailed information about the gmax user interface and program functions in the online reference.

Create an object and change the display

Move your cursor to the Create panel.
The Create panel provides functions for adding 3D objects to your scene.
Click the Sphere button.
The button changes color to show it's activated.
In the Perspective viewport, position your cursor over the center of the grid, then press and drag outward. A sphere grows in the viewport before your eyes. Release the mouse button at any point to set the radius of the sphere.

Don't worry if your sphere is a different color than the one shown here. gmax assigns a random color to each new object. You'll learn how to change the color later in this lesson.
Next, you'll learn how to change one of the sphere's settings, but first you'll need to modify the display in order to see the setting change take effect.
In the upper-left corner of the Perspective viewport, right-click the "Perspective" label. A menu appears. Choose Edged Faces from the menu.

Viewport right-click menu
You can now see all the polygons that form the sphere. Edged Faces combines the wireframe display, normally visible in the orthogonal viewports, with the Smooth + Highlights display, the default for the Perspective viewport.

Edged Faces display

Change a creation parameter

On the Command panel, click the Modify tab.
This opens the Modify panel, where you can use modifiers to make many different types of alterations to your objects.
In gmax, the command panels are divided into sections called rollouts. A rollout is called that because if it's closed and you click its title, it rolls out, or expands. A non-expanded rollout has a + sign on the left side of its title.
On the Modify panel, find the Parameters rollout; it's already expanded. Then find the Segments parameter, just below Radius, and use the spinner to change the Segments setting to 17.
The spinner is the up/down-arrowhead control to the right of the numeric field labeled "Segments." You can click the down arrow to decrease the number of segments one at a time. Or, if you hold down the mouse button on the arrow, the segments automatically change successively.
As a result of reducing the Segments setting, the sphere now contains fewer polygons. In general with 3D modeling, and particularly when creating game content, a lower polygon count results in improved speed.

The sphere will serve as the basis for the mace head. Next you'll add spikes in the form of cones. You'll use a convenient gmax feature called AutoGrid that automatically aligns new objects with the surface you create them on.

Add more objects

Reopen the Create panel, click Cone, and then turn on AutoGrid. Also, in the Parameters rollout, set Sides to 8.
Because the spikes are relatively small, you can create them with a fairly low mesh resolution.

AutoGrid turned on
In the Perspective viewport, move the mouse cursor over the sphere.
Attached to the cursor is a tripod whose angle changes with the movement of your cursor. The point of intersection of the tripod legs (axes) shows where the cone will be created, and the Z axis shows the orientation of the cone. Choose a point on the left side of the sphere.
Note: Adding a cone is a three-step process. Each of the next three tutorial steps handles one phase of cone creation. You can abort the creation process at any time before completion by clicking the right mouse button.
Press and drag to define the radius of the cone base. To set the radius, lift the mouse button.

AutoGrid lets you build an object off another object's surface.
Next you'll set the height of the cone.
Move the mouse to the left to define the height, or length, of the cone. Click the button to set the height.

Move and click to set the cone's height.
Lastly, you'll set the cone's taper.
Move the mouse upward until the cone comes to a point, and then click the mouse button again to set the taper and finish the cone.

Move and click to set the cone's taper.
Add 10 or so more spikes to the visible part of the sphere surface. Also add a handle in the form of a longer cone that's only slightly tapered.

Add more spikes and a handle.
When you're setting the height and taper, you might need to drag in different directions, depending on where you start the cone. No problem; just move the mouse in one direction, and if that's not right, reverse the direction.
Don't worry about making all the spikes exactly the same size; this is just an exercise. You might even want to have fun with it by making different types of spikes using some of the other primitive objects available from the Create panel.
In the Perspective viewport, right-click to finish adding cones.

Combine the objects into one

Currently, the mace is made up of a number of discrete objects. To conclude this lesson, you'll combine everything into a single mesh and change the color.

Click the sphere in the viewport to select it, and then right-click the sphere.
The quad menu appears. Quad menus give you handy access to a number of useful gmax program functions; the available choices depend on the context in which you right-click.
In the Transform quadrant, move the mouse down to Convert To, and then over to Convert To Editable Mesh. Click to select that command.

The Command panel switches to the Modify tab, and you can now see rollouts for the various Editable Mesh functions.
In the Edit Geometry rollout, click the Attach List button.
The Attach List dialog appears, with a list of all the other objects in the scene. The Attach functions let you combine several objects into one.
In the dialog, near the lower-left corner, click the All button.
All of the objects in the list become highlighted.
Near the lower-right corner, click the Attach button.
The dialog closes, and all the cones turn the same color as the sphere, to show they're now all part of the same object.

Because a mace is usually made of metal, this object might look better if you give it a gray, metallic color.
Right-click on the Perspective viewport label and turn off Edged Faces, if it is on.
The metal will look better without Edged Faces on.
Near the top of the Modify panel, click the color swatch to the right of the name Sphere01. In the Object Color dialog, click one of the gray boxes under Custom Colors, and then click OK.

Click the color swatch and choose a gray color.
Note: If you click in a viewport away from the mace, thus deselecting it, you might notice that the gray color is close to that of the viewport background, which makes it difficult to see the wireframe mesh in the orthogonal viewports. In such cases, you would usually assign a material that determines how the object looks in shaded viewports, and assign a different object color for the wireframe display.

Save your work

It's always a good idea to save your work as you progress.

From the File menu choose Save. Give the file a name such as my_mace.gmax and click Save.
Saving a file with Save stores everything in the scene to the file. The File menu also provides a Save Selected command, which saves only selected objects to the file.
In the next lesson you'll learn how to manipulate the view of your scene.

Viewport Navigation