My second project for learning 3DS Max was to design a fairly simple object with non-standard, non-symmetrical geometry, and build it exactly how I envisaged it, ie: working out how to create a specific structure in 3D, not just pulling a shape in random directions until I eventually found something that was nearly right. I'm going to want to do this commercially one day, and sooner rather than later, so I need to be able to work to a designer's exact specifications.

I decided to create a perfume bottle, as this would involve a few other challenges to keep things interesting, such as making a semi-opaque glass material, and putting a logo on the bottle. And I made it a bit harder for myself by displaying the perfume bottle on a satin sheet, draped over a block, which involved learning about 'cloth' materials in Max. So quite a tricky project for a beginner, but I'd say the result is fairly good. Click to enlarge:

perfume_bottle_full.jpg

Here's how the scene looked in Max:

perfume_bottle_max.jpg

Note that the logo isn't simply 'typed' in to the scene. It had to be created separately as a texture and added to a plane, which was then meticulously manipulated to fit the shape of the bottle. There may be an easier way to achieve the same effect, but here's what I did:

perfume_bottle_logo_mesh.jpg

The litte ridges at the bottom of the bottle were produced using a displacement map. But if I had applied that map to the whole of the glass material then it would have created weird ridges all over the top and bottom of the bottle, so I only added it to a 'ring' of faces around the bottom of the bottle. That introduced a new challenge: Manually editing the texture co-ordinates (UVs) for those faces. That was a lot easier than I expected.

perfume_bottle_glass.jpg

Designing the satin sheet was fun as Max includes material simulation, so I only needed to create the flat sheet and then tell Max to drape it over the box. I'm not 100% happy with the satin material I created as it looks a little too much like plastic to me, but the intricacies of material design aren't the priority at this stage.

perfume_bottle_satin.jpg