This is an incredible set of 3ds Max training DVD's, created for you by the 3D Buzz team. As with all of our training it has been designed to lead even the complete beginner to an advanced level.

'Mastering 3ds Max: The Fundamentals' is an amazing 423 video lectures spanning nearly 110 hours. We guide you through 3 different projects, each one increasing your skills, allowing you to go on to create stunning content of your own.

Your education begins from the standpoint of the complete beginner, providing you with a guided tour of the user interface, and allowing you to familiarize and feel at ease with 3ds Max’s many controls. From there, you will launch into three very different projects, each one building upon the last to carry you comfortably to the level of proficient 3ds Max user as you create beautifully detailed animations. The projects are very comprehensive, and each and every step carefully explained to make sure that you not only understand what it is you’re doing, but exactly why you’re doing it and how each tool you use works within 3ds Max!

This single product will push your 3ds Max understanding further than any other fundamentals training available today.

All this for an unbeatable $99.99

Overview of the project

This project serves as a way to get your feet wet with 3ds Max. This project expands upon the introductory videos by showing you how to construct, animate, and render your own digital scenes!

The project focuses on every animator's rite of passage, a bouncing ball. However, instead of simply bouncing the ball across a basic scene, you'll spice things up by treating the ball as if it were a character performing for a talent show!

Animation

You'll be introduced to the concepts of keyframe animation, and how keyframes and animation curves are created and edited to provide total control of the look of your scene's animation. You'll see how 3ds Max's Modifier Stack can be used to create not only a tremendous variety of effects, but how those effects can be animated to add an incredible amount of detail and character to your scenes, such as a cartoon-like squash and stretch for your ball character as he bounces across the stage!

Controls and 'rigs'

You'll also see how reactive animation is handled inside of 3ds Max with the Reaction Manager, as well as how you can use it to create automated "rigs" for characters in your scene, and how to make easy-to-use control systems for various scene elements!

Materials

From there, you'll be introduced to the Material Editor, learning how materials are controlled through texture maps. Once your scene is fully textured, you'll see how to light and render the animation, as well as how to convert your frames to a final movie using Video Post.

Overview of the Project

The second project of 3ds Max Fundamentals covers a multi-scene animation in which two F-14 fighters take off from an aircraft carrier under cover of night to strike an enemy installation!

You'll also be introduced to 3ds Max's Editable Poly object, UV mapping, materials and a lot more. The project focuses on the use of a custom multi-asset pipeline using Max's XRef feature to allow for easy editing of scene assets without having to make dramatic changes to the scene.

Modeling and custom controls

You'll start off with an in-depth look at 3ds Max's reference coordinate systems, and how they can be used to create a wide variety of custom transforms tailored to your specific needs. You'll also be introduced to 3ds Max's Editable Poly object, and how you can use its included modeling tools to create any shape imaginable. You'll also see how Max's splines can be used to create objects using the Surface Modifier.

Awesome animation

The animation for the project will cover many scenes and camera angles, including the takeoff of the F-14 fighter jets, their midair rendezvous, and a missile strike on a target oil rig. As you progress through each lesson, you'll learn a different aspect of scene creation and management including modeling, UVW unwrapping and texturing, material animation, constraint animation, and particle animation as you create missiles complete with thrusters, contrails, and a resulting explosion!

Overview of the Project

The animation for this project depicts a baby dragon celebrating his first birthday, but things go a bit wrong when he gets a little overexcited while blowing out his candle!

Modeling and texturing

Create your own fully modeled, textured, rigged, and animated bipedal character! This is an important milestone in mastering any 3D animation software. You'll see how to create the character using polygon tools, as well as how to unwrap its UVWs and apply a custom texture.

Rigging a character

From there, we cover the creation of a complete character rig from scratch, rather than simply relying on the prefabricated Biped rig included with 3ds Max. In so doing, you'll get to see exactly how bones work, how to properly apply inverse kinematics (IK), and how to apply control objects to turn your character into an easily controllable digital puppet. Once the rig is constructed, you'll see how to attach your model's geometry to the skeleton through the process of skinning using Max's Skin Modifier. You'll see how you can control and edit the skinning of your character to create a realistic look of flexibility and deformation as the character moves.

Having fun with the animation

The animation for the dragon will consist of a simple walk cycle, a couple of hop sequences where he tries to blow out a candle on his cake, and then a short sequence where in the excitement, he accidentally takes flight and incinerates the entire cake. You'll see how to create animation using rotoscoping, and how to add facial expressions using Morph Targets.