3DS Max tutorial - How to Model a BBS LM Rim

How to Model a BBSLM Rim IN 3DSMAX

It is a very simple tutorial, which can be followed by any beginner because I have made a lot of images to help you to understand how it works. Bwlow you have the reference image that we are using :

1. We will start by changing the Viewport to “Top View” and we will make a plane like I did in the first image. Use the same values as me :
Lenght: 90.0
Width : 90.0
Lenght Segs : 1
Width Segs : 1

When the plane was created, move it in the middle of the scene/viewport. You can do this by changing the coordinates of X Y and Z to 0

2. Now we will apply our reference image on our plane. We will start by oprening the “Material Editor” (you can do this by pressing the M buttom). Choose a standard material and click on that little square from “Diffuse” > pick “Bitmap” > and load the reference image that you have downloaded at the beginning of this tutorial. When the image is loaded, apply it on the plane :

3. We don’t want to accidentaly move our reference image when we will model our rim and to prevent this, we will do the following thing : select the plane > right click > choose “Object Properties”. When the following window will appear :
Check “Freeze” – this will block the object and we won’t be able to select it or move it
Uncheck “Show Frozen in Gray” – normally the freezed object are displayed in grey, and this is why we are unchecking this box, because we need to see the details of the rim, instead of a grey color :

4. To make the rim, we will start by making a tube. GO to “Geommetry” > select “Tube” > and start to make the tube as I am showing you in the image and use the same coordinates. Be sure that the pivot is in the middle of the viewport, like the pivot of the plane with the reference image :

5. You can make the tube transparent, for a better view of the reference image . To do this, you have 2 choices :
- Press ALT + X
- Pick a standard material , and lower his oppacity and after you can apply it on our tube

6. At this step, delete all polygons of the tube except the front ones. Delete only those ones that we cannot see if we are watching in the “Top Viewport” (side and rear polygons)

7. Starting from the edge selected in the upper part of the image, hold down the “Shift” button and drag it to the center of the rim, like you see in the lower part of the image :

8. Select both edges ad I did in the image, the use the “Connect” tool to connect them :

9. Creat new polygons as you did at the step 7, by holding the shift button and dragging. Take a look at the next image to have an idea :

10. Below you can see how the mesh start to get a shape and how it is alligned on the contour of the rim :

11. When you are done, keep the mesh selected, go to the “Modifier list” > pick the “Symmetry” modifier and you should have the other side too :

12. Now make another tube, as you did the first tube : use the same coordinates, move the pivot in the middle/center of the viewport and delete the rear and side polygons :

13. Below you can see how I have attached those 2 tubes and made a single object. To attach them one to another, just select one of the parts, click the “attach” button and choose the other part. When you are done, weld the vertices as you see in the last images of this step. You can do this by using the “Weld” tool :

14. Now, starting from those 2 edges selected in the left side of the image, hold the shift button and drag them to the exterior, to create another row of poligons. When you are place, place them as in the right side of the image and don’t forget to weld the images :

15. Having only one spoke, we will create the onther one using the “Array” tool. This tool we will create several copies of our object arround his pivot. To do this, go to “Tools” > “Array” (first image). Then, when the menu appeared , make the following settings (second image) :

16. Select the same edges as in the first image, then create a new row of polygons and place them like in the second image. When the vertices are placed on the edge of the spoke, pull them a little bit the the interior of the rim, to create a bended shape of the spoke, like in the third image :

Do the same thing on the other side of the spoke too :

17. Now weld the vertices between copies using the “Weld” tool

18. Select these edges (for a quicker selection, select just one, and press the “Ring” button) and when the edges are selected, connect them using a new row of edges :

19. Middle of the rim. Select the border of the middle hole, then use the “Scale” tool and hold the “Shift” button down to create new rows of polygons while you are scaleing down the hole :

20. If we will leave everything like this, when we will apply a smooth modifier, the edges of the spokes won’t be sharp, but rounded. To solve this problem we will use the “Chamfer” tool, which splits the edges. So, select the same edges as me, and then click on that small square near the “Chamfer” tool and put a small value. I have used 0.15, and if the amount will be even smaller, the edges will be sharper, but we din’t need to have a very sharp look, because this is a rim, not a knife. So, 0.15 will work perfectly :

21. The spokes are a little bit pushed the to the exterior of the rim. So, select the same vertices as me, and drag them just a little bit to the interior like in the second image :

22. The next thing that we should do, is to solve the triangle problems after the chamfering process. Since we have chamfered the edges at the 20 step,we should check to see if we have triangles on our mesh, because if we have, they can ruin our mesh when we will apply a smooth modifier. So, if you have spotted triangles like in the first image, select the same vertices as in the left side of the first image, then use the “Weld” tool to weld them. And there are also problems like in the second image. If you will spot them, select these 3 vertices as in the second image and use the “Weld” tool to weld them

23. Select these 2 vertices, then press the “ring” button to select other edges and when you are done, connect them using the same values like in the second image. And in the 3rd image, you need to select those edges and drag them a little bit to the interior :

24. The next steps will be these : select these edges :

Press the “loop” button to select the edges in a circular mode :

When you are done, apply a Chamfer on the selected edges using a small amount :

And after the edges were splited, check the mesh for triangles and solve them as before :

25. Now select the exerior border of the rim (first image) , use loop for a faster selection, hold the “Shift” button and drag the border a little bit to the interior of the rim

Keep the border selected , hold the shift button ans using the “Scale” tool, increase the size of the vorder to create a new row of edges like below :

Then make again a new row until you will reach the “lip” of the rim :

26. Be sure that the edges are touching the interior side of the rim’s lip (first image) , then use the images that I have made to model the lip of the rim :

27. Select the same edges , and using the Scale tool , increase the size just a little bit, like in the second image :

28. DO the same thing for the next edges :

29. Now select the exterior edges of the rim (first image) then hold the shift button and drag them to the interior of the rim (second image), and after you have made the first row of polygons, make another one like in the 3rd image :

30. Keep the edges selected , and using the “Scale” and press the buton “Shift”, and decrease the size like in the next image :

31. Let’s go back a little bit to the edges that are on the lip of the rimp. Follow the next images and apply a “chamfer” on the selected edges. I don;t think that its really necessary to tell you the same thing over and over again for each edge :

32. Now let’s work a little bit on the side part of the rim. Select the same edges and connect them like I did :

33. Use “Scale” to squeeze the middle of the rim, then connect the selected edges :

34. From now, we will start to add details on the front part of the rim. We will start by making the holes for the bolts. To make a perfect hole, make a cylinder and place it like in the next image :

Use the “Cut” tool to cut the shape of the cylinder on our rim :

Once the contour is made, delete the interior polygon :

35. As you have probably notices, there are some vertices which are not connected to some edges and to make some extra edges for them, select these edges and connect them. Once the edges connected, use the “Cut” tool to create an edge between the vertices (3rd image)

36. Select the border of the ole, and use the “Shift” button to pull the border to the interior of the rim like I did below. And when you are done, you can use “Scale” + Shift to make it a little bit smaller or even close it :

37. Like I have said earlier, the edges without a chamfer on them, will be very smoothed/round after we will apply a smooth modifier. But here, the edges which surounds the hole, need to be a little bit sharp. To do this, we need to apply a “Chamfer” on the selected edges. Then we need to look out for triangles and solve them (in the second and the third image, you have a method to weld the vertices )

Then we will apply a chamfer on these edges too, but here we won’t have any triangles :

Continue like this for the other 4 holes.
38. Apply a “chamfer” on these edge too :

39. Another details that we need to make, are those small bolts which surounds the rim. You have the modeling process for one bolt : start from a tube, delete the interior, the close it and make the center bended to the interior , apply a chamfer like in the next images and thats all :

40. To place those 20 bolts perfectly, first, we need to move the pivot of our bolt in the middle of the scene :

41. When the pivot is in the middle of the rim, we will use again the “Array” tool to make 20 copii of this bolt and place them automatically on the rim :

42. We are moving forward and we will create the bolts which support the rim. We can start by creating a tube or a cylinder. If you have started with a tube, delete the interior polygons and close the top part like I did below. Once the upper part is closed, apply a chamfer on the selected edges from the last images from this step :

43. Put the bolt into the holes. In the image you will see just a single hole but I hope that you did the rest of them too :

44. Now we will continue with the middle of the rim. In the images you won’t see the holes because I have remade the tutorial. So, select the border of the central hole, hold shift and drag it to the interior of the rim :

45. Keep the edges selected and use the “Scale” tool and the shift buton to shrink the hole and also create a new row of polygons, then come back with those edges to the top :

46. We just need to close that small cap of the rim. To do this, use the scale tool + shift , and lift up a little bit the edges to make the cap a little bit rounded , like below. Don’t forget to weld the middle vertices :

47. The last part that we need to make, is the interior of the rim. Turn the viewport to be able to see the rim from behindthe select the same edges as me :

48. Select the “Scale” tool and hold the shift button to decrease the diameter of the hold and also to create a new row of polygons

49. Holding the edges still selected, drag them to the front part of the rim, until you will arrive with them near the spokes, then add some more rows of edges on the interior side :

50. You can apply a chamfer on these edges :

51. At this step, we need to connect the edges from the interior of the rim with those one which are on the front side. Do like this :
Do not touch the spokes for the moment, but connect (using the Bridge tool) the selected edges, this ones which are between the spokes :

Do the same thing until you are done :
52. Once you are done, do it again, but this time on the other side : I will show you an example, then you need to continue :

53. We will move forward and work on the spokes. We will use the same method , with the “Bridge” tool. There aren’t many things to exaplain here because there are the same steps. Just bridge the edges like in the following images :

54. Don’t forger ti weld the vertices by using the “Target Weld” tool. Weld the vertex A to vertex B

55. Do the same thing for each spoke until you will have the same result as below :

56. Now we are closing the middle hole. Use “border” to select the entire hole’s edge. If every vertex is welded, with a single click, you should be able to select the entire border. Then use the scale tool and the shift button to create extra polygons and close the hole

57. We are almost done. We just need to chamfer these edges, which are selected in the next image, then we will check to see if there are any triangles :

58. And here you have the last step : chamfer the edges from the first image then add 2-3 rows of new edges like in the second image :

This is all what I have to show you in this tutorial. Below you have a couple of render that I have made using the Vray scene made by Andrei C, and which can be downloaded via our forum. To be able to see the download link, you need an account on our forum.
Bye 

Thanks ./TUTORIAL-Z