To go with the mansion...

Just did this "freehand" and was pretty happy with the shape of it. Well, when it was four shapes anyway. But then I pro-bullioned them together, and applied a shell, and lost the ability to edit the polygon material ID's, so I put on another edit poly, and then applied some material (brushed metal for the body, glass for the glass). But now I'm getting the weird black cross hatching looking stuff. Where did I go wrong. I'm guessing it was around the pro bullion phase...

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  blackbird 1st attempt.jpg (47.92 KB)

Looks like a smoothing or turned edge issue and probably was, indeed, caused by the boolean operation. Select all the faces at once and remove the smoothing groups, then apply autosmooth to see if it clears the black areas.

I'll give it a try, but I'm not really sure what smothing groups are... I never added any, are they a byproduct of bullion(ing)?

No, smoothing groups are a part of Polygon Properties in editable mesh or editable poly. When you have two adjacent faces, the SG determines if there will be a smooth transition across the two faces or a hard (visible) edge.

Create a sphere and convert to editable poly. Go to sub-object model face or polygon and select two that are side by side. In the Polygon Properties panel, note the smoothing number. If they are both the same, then it's smooth across then. Change one of the face's SG's to another number, doesn't matter which. Now look at the difference.

If you need more help I can show you online as I have time right now. (using a conference program to see my monitor on yours).

Thanks for the offer, unfortunately I have limited acces to internet. I don't have it, or 3DS, at home so I post as I come and go from school. I'm not even always working on something when I swing by here. For instance, right now I'm at school for a final. DOn't really have time to get into building anything but I think of stuff to ask when I'm at home or in class. So I log on whenever... I don't even know if the schools network would allow me to do that confrence thing you mentioned. They keep these things fairly restricted.

Okay, that's too bad. Well did my explanation of smoothing groups in 3ds Max help at all?

Sounded pretty stright forward, didn't have the chance to check it out yet. Had a final the other night, classes start back up next week. I'm at the public library at the moment. I could go up to school through the day, but I feel like too much of a loser spending my spring break hanging out at my school library. Gonna do some hand sketching for ships I wanna make in 3D, kickstart the ole creative juices.

You sound very creative! Keep at it.

Zack, I can't wait to see some of your work, I just know its going to be interesting.

whoa fellas... too much pressure... or is that 'ice ice baby' stuck in my head...