Creating a Flower Stand and Vase in 3DS Max

By Stealth_Snake | 3DS Max | Intermediate |3dlessons.com
This tutorial will teach you how to create two simple house furniture pieces which could be used in a variety of projects, namely: a flower stand and a flower vase. We are going to use Spline, Loft and Lathe Modifiers to create these simple models.


This tutorial is an intermediate level tutorial. It will is divided into the following sections:

Creating a basic shape of the leg of the stand with spline.

Converting the leg spline shape to a 3D model using loft.

Duplicating the legs to create the stand.

Creating the Stand Holder Rings.

Creating a basic shape of stand leg with spline

Spline is a drawing method that enables you to draw basic lines or shapes in the same way that you would use the Pen Tool in Adobe Photoshop or Fireworks.
We are going to start off by creating the basic shape of the stand leg using Spline. Go through Create>Shapes>Lines and start drawing the leg shape shown below in your Left Viewport.


The next step is to create a small circle that will later be transformed into a ring to hold the stand legs together. Go this time through Create>Shapes>Circle and draw a tiny circle somewhere next to the shape existing on the viewport. The position does not matter, but the diameter of the circule will determine the thickness of your stand rings, so just make that it is not too thick.

Converting the spline shape to 3d model using Loft Modifier

The loft modifier lets us transform a 2D shape into a 3D object by extruded the shape along a third axis. We will use this modifier to make the leg 3D. Select the leg by itself first and then go through Create>Geometry>Compound Objects>Loft. Scroll down to the Creation Method rollout and look for the Get Shape button, enable it by clicking on it once. Now click on the circle we have on the scene and then right-click anywhere on the scene to loft the shapes. 3DS Max should automatically create a new 3D model of the leg using the spline shapes.

Duplicating the Leg To create the Stand

Our flower stand will be made up of four legs and not just one. We already have one, so will just clone it to create the others. To make things more organised and easier to manage, access the Modify Panel and rename the model we created from loft01 to leg01.
Because the legs will be rotated when cloned, we can make our life much easier if we position the pivot point at a more helpful place. To reposition the pivot select leg01 on the stage then go through Hierarchy>Pivot>Move/Rotate/Scale>Affect Pivot Only and select that button. Secondly, move the Pivot Point of leg01 so that it is at the center of the stand if the leg were to be a part of it. Check the image below to see what that position would be. Once you move the pivot click on the Affect Pivot Only button again to turn it off.

We will now clone the stand leg as we rotate. To make sure that the rotation is done in a consistent manner, select the Rotation Tool and then enable the Angle Snap Toggle from your toolbar. Hold down the Shift key now and rotate the leg along the x-axis for 90 degrees. Use the Auto Snap Toggle Reader to help you snap it at the right position. Once you release the mouse click, the Clone Options pop-up window should appear. Select Instance and the Number of Copies to 3.

Creating the Stand Holder Rings

Creating the upper and lower rings will require repeating the same process we used to create the original leg shape. Here is an outline on how to do it, you should perform these simple tasks yourself this time:

1. Draw a circle shape (Go through Create>Shapes>Circle).
2. Convert the shape to loft (Go through Create>Geometry>Compound Objects>Loft).
3. Use the small circle shape we created earlier as a reference to your shape (Click on the Get Shape button).
4. Right-Click to finish and move the ring to its right position.

Repeat the process to create the other circle. You should end up with something similar to the image below.

This concludes part one of this tutorial for creating the stand, our second part of the tutorial will teach you how to create the flower vase using lathe. Click here to go to the next page.
In the previous section of this tutorial you learnt how to create a flower stand using using spline and loft. This section will teach you a quick method on how to create a flower vase using lathe. The Lathe Modifier converts a simple shape into a 3D object by revolving the shape around one of the axis. You will learn how to use that to create a vase.

Create flower Vase using Lathe

We are going to create our vase by using an spline line to draw a section of the vase and then use the lathe modifier to convert it into a model.
Start by going through Create>Shape>Line and draw half an inner slice of the vase.

While this shape is still selected click on the Modify tab and set the selection mode to Spline then simply scroll down to Outline and enable Outline by clicking on it. Now select the vase shape from the scene, then hold down the mouse left click and drag it down a little bit - This will add thickness to the shape with accordance to the dragged distance.

While you are still at the Modify Tab, select Lathe from the Modifier List. You will then have to enable Weld Core and set Align to Mid and the Output to Patch as shown in the screenshot image below. These values should get you a smooth 3D vase model.

Note: Sometimes the Lathe Modifier flips the surface so that the inside of the object is visible outside. To make sure that this does not happen you may need to enable Flip Normals.
That should make our vase ready! You may optionally apply textures to it and the flower stand to create a more realistic looking furniture set!
This concludes our tutorial, I hope that you learnt something new from it. Feel free to post at the Oman3D Forum if you have any questions.
End of Tutorial