3ds Max 9 Bible

Compound objects provide several additional modeling types to our bulging modeling toolkit. From morph objects to complex deformed lofts, you can use these special-purpose types to model many different objects. This chapter covered these topics:

• The various compound object types

• Morphing objects with the same number of vertices

• Creating a Conform object with differing numbers of vertices

• Using splines and mesh objects to create a ShapeMerge object

• Creating a Terrain object using splines

• The Mesher object

• Using the BlobMesh object to simulate water

• Creating a Scatter object

• Creating a Connect object to join two objects

• Creating a Loft object

• How to control Loft parameters

• Using Loft deformations

• Modifying Loft subobjects

• Comparing the strengths of loft objects versus surface tools

• Modeling with the ProBoolean and ProCutter objects

Hair and fur are tricky to model, but Max includes a separate interface that makes applying hair and fur to a model easy. The interface also includes options for styling hair: It's like a regular virtual beauty salon, which you get to tour in the next chapter.