Wednesday 14th November: Sledge hammer

Create a cylinder

Height: 16

Radius: 4

Parameters- change the sides to 10- if there’s no change then do this in the modify tab and change the sides in there instead

Press F4 to see the edges  

Turn the height segments down to 3 and the cap segments down to 1 

Drag the X axis (red line) inwards to make it look more like the handle of a sledgehammer

One done-  right click and convert to editable poly  

Go into edge mode- red triangle icon and select one of the lines going around the shape- click loop so that it wraps all the way around the model

Press and hold ctrl- select the other line going horizontally just beneath it and press loop again

Grab the Y axis and pull inwards to make it look more like a handle shape

Press the red cube tool and click the shape to select the whole shape then adjust it on the Y axis until you’re happy with the shape 

Create a box over the top using the top wireframe view look at how the box fits over the top of the handle

Select the handle and go to the align tool, click center on both settings and apply to put the hammer head in the middle of the handle  

Check Z position and select Maximum on both settings and apply, the head should be at the top 

If you go into polygon mode and select either side face of the hammer then use the scale tool to make either end wider

When happy right click and convert the head to an  editable poly

Select the two top edges- the 1^st segment and the 3^rd segment and then press Ring 

Right click and select chamfer to get a hammer head shape- the size will be dependent on the size of the head- I set mine to 0.66 and the bottom option to around 2

Using polygon mode select each end of the head and right click- select the small box next to Inset and pick an amount, usually 0.3 works well- ensure that it is grouped by polygon and not by Group

In this view (3D view) right click the word which says Realistic and click consistent colours then go to Lighting and Shadows- untick shadows 

Select the hammer head and open UVW editor

Go to polygon mode in the UV window

Select the middle polygon on the inverted face and press the grow selection button which is a blue box with a little grey square in the bottom left corner and a plus sign at the top right corner, this will select everything in that face, even the outside edges. 

In the max window go to projection and select the icon which resembles a plane, then deselect the icon after to ensure that you can click other things.  Then move this to one side in the UV editor window and do the same for the other face. 

Draw a selection box around the remaining polys and select the cylinder tool from projection- then click to the Y button under align options

Select the faces individually (separate boxes) and reduce the size of them with the scale tool

Right click and convert to an editable poly

Repeat the same process for the handle

With the handle selected click on attach under edit geometry and then select the hammerhead; it should turn the same colour as the handle

Click attach again so that you don’t attach anything else

Convert to editable poly and unwrap UVW, then organise all of the shapes so that they fit into the box, making the most out of the given space

Tools- render the UVW template and put in 512, 512 for the resolution, save it as sledgehammer template in JPEG format

Then open it up in Photoshop and pick some textures from the internet, place them on the different areas of the template, go back into Max and open up the material editor- ensure that its in the correct mode- go to maps- then diffuse colour and pick the bitmap which you did in photoshop- press the checkerboard with the lightbulb to see the texture