Learn key concepts of hierarchies.
- [Instructor] In chapter 10 we'll look at hierarchies or connecting objects together, especially for animation. You will need to have objects connected to one another. For example we've got our little artist mannequin here and we can pose that mannequin by rotating the various parts. If I select his shoulder for example, I can rotate that. Before I do I just want to make it a little bit easier to see by disabling these selection brackets. That's the J key on the keyboard. And also turning on the selection highlighting with edged faces.
A selected object can be displayed in an edged faces mode. That's done from the view port menu here. The right most entry on that menu; click on that. go down to display selected and enable display selected with edged faces, and that way it's a little easier to see what we've selected because we've got the wire frame superimposed. With that shoulder selected now I can go to the rotate tool and then rotate and we can see that the other parts of the character are actually following it.
And this is how hierarchies work. The shoulder here is the parent of the elbow here. And the elbow is, again in turn, the parent of this wrist object here. The rule with hierarchies is that the transforms of the child are inherited from the parent. That is, the position or the end result of where this elbow is, is going to be inherited from the position rotation and scale of the shoulder.
Children inherit the transforms of their parents. Same thing with position. If I use the move tool and move the shoulder, we'll see that its children are going to follow. I'll undo that. Control Z. And again likewise with scale. Scale is inherited too. Undo that with control Z. Pretty simple. Pretty basic stuff. The other rule to keep in mind is that a child can only have one parent. A parent can have many children. And in this model for example, I have a pelvis and it's the center of the hierarchy.
And everything else is a child of that pelvis. All right? We've got the thigh joints here. You've got the hip left and hip right. Those are children of the pelvis. And we've got the chest here. That is additionally a child of the pelvis. That means if I select the pelvis and transform it, position, rotate, or scale it then those objects will all inherit that transform. We can see the hierarchical structure in the scene explorer. That's one way to do it. I'll open up that scene explorer.
Here it is. And what we've got is one object, the pelvis and a little right-facing arrow there. If we open that up it's going to show us all the child objects. And there's a nested hierarchy here. Children can have other children. In this example, all the links or the parent-child relationships are already created. Later in the chapter we'll look at how to make and break links between the objects. That's just a basic introduction to the concept of hierarchies in 3D.
Author
Released
4/12/2017Learn how to get around the 3ds Max interface and customize it to suit your production pipeline. Discover how to model different objects using splines, NURBS, polygons, subdivision surfaces, and tools such as Paint Deform. Then, find out how to construct hierarchies, add cameras and lights to a scene, and animate with keyframes. Author Aaron F. Ross also takes an in-depth look at materials and texture mapping as well as the rendering options, including an introduction to Arnold, the new production renderer.
- Customizing and configuring the interface
- Selecting, duplicating, and editing objects
- Working with sub-objects in the modifier stack
- Performing polygonal and subdivision surface modeling
- Freeform modeling and sculpting
- Modeling with splines and NURBS
- Linking objects in hierarchies
- Framing shots with cameras
- Creating and editing keyframes
- Controlling lights and shadows
- Building materials
- Mapping textures
- Rendering sequences
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
Views
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Introduction
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Welcome1m 14s
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1. Getting Started
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Choosing a workspace1m 42s
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Setting preferences3m 40s
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Using project folders5m 4s
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2. 3ds Max Interface
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Navigating in viewports7m 24s
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Using hotkeys3m 11s
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Specifying display units3m 7s
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Specifying system units4m 17s
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Defining the Home Grid3m 27s
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Choosing shading modes4m 26s
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Configuring viewports2m 21s
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Customizing colors4m 6s
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Customizing hotkeys5m 18s
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3. Manipulating Objects
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Choosing a coordinate system4m 17s
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Collecting objects in Groups6m 16s
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4. Using the Modifier Stack
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Moving a pivot point2m 43s
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Selecting sub-objects3m 26s
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Building a modifier stack4m 51s
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5. Spline Modeling
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Creating a line8m 14s
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Editing vertex types4m 58s
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Editing Splines3m 51s
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Understanding NURBS4m 42s
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Rendering splines3m 39s
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Adding a Bevel modifier5m 35s
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6. Polygon Modeling
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Creating an image plane8m 23s
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Tracing an image plane5m 56s
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Adding edges with Cut4m 16s
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Preparing Boolean operands8m 55s
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Cutting with Booleans4m 48s
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Creating doors and windows5m 44s
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7. Sub-Object Polygon Editing
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Detailing with Chamfer5m 45s
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Branching with Extrude5m 45s
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Welding vertices4m 43s
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8. Subdivision Surface Modeling
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Baking subdivisions3m 27s
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9. Freeform Modeling
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Using Paint Deform brushes6m 27s
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Setting paint options3m 37s
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Controlling brush options3m 34s
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10. Hierarchies
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Understanding hierarchies3m 23s
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Linking objects6m 32s
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Locking transforms3m 29s
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11. Layout and Modeling
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Merging scenes3m 29s
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Managing display layers5m 50s
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Creating a target camera3m 51s
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Creating a free camera5m 16s
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Enabling safe frames3m 41s
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12. Keyframe Animation
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13. Lighting
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Creating photometric lights4m 21s
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Controlling viewport quality3m 14s
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Adjusting exposure control6m 37s
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Using the ART renderer5m 52s
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Adjusting light shape3m 49s
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Adjusting light distribution6m 38s
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Creating a sun and sky8m 19s
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Using the Light Explorer7m 45s
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14. Materials
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15. Mapping Textures
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Placing 3D procedural maps8m 24s
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Mapping bitmap image files4m 55s
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Tracking scene assets9m 39s
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Projecting UVs with UVW Map5m 24s
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Using Real-World Map Size2m 10s
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16. Rendering
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Choosing a renderer5m 47s
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Setting Arnold render options10m 24s
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Conclusion
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Next steps2m 11s
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Video: Understanding hierarchies