make duck

Duck toy is very popular toy, usually made from rubber. Babies and kids love to play with it in bathroom. Today we will create this toy, not using rubber, but using 3dsmax. A lot of tools will be used in this tutorial. So, it is definitely perfect tutorial to sharpen your skill. You will create this toy from scratch, from modeling to texturing. Let's begin.


1. Open or reset your 3dsmax. In Command Panel, select Extended Primitives from pulldown menu. Click Capsule button. Click and drag in Front viewport to create capsule. We will use capsule to create duck's body. In Modify tab, make sure you have capsule with Radius=50, Height=160, and Height Segments=3. Activate Edge Faces view in Perspective viewport (press F3 in keyboard).

2. We will modify capsule using Free Form Deformation (FFD) Modifier. This modifier acts like a cage. If we deform the cage, object inside it will deform too. In Modify tab, add FFD 3x3x3 to capsule. This modifier name shows how much control point that made up the cage. In Modifier Stack, click plus (+) sign left of FFD 3x3x3, then highlight or select Control Points.

3. Using Select And Move Tool and Select And Non-Uniform Tool move control points until capsule is deformed like image.below.

4. Right click object in viewport and choose Convert to>Convert to Editable Poly. Activate Vertex Selection. Also turn on Soft Selection with Falloff=50. In Top viewport, select one vertex at the tip of capsule.

5. Then, in Left viewport move selected vertices up to create small tail.. When finished, turn off soft selection and all sub-object selection.

6. Now, let's create the head. Begin by adding a sphere with Radius=45 and Segments=10. Move sphere above body (look at image below for reference). Select body object. Go to Modify tab. In Edit Geometry rollout, click Attach button. Then, click sphere in viewport. Now, body and head is combined into one object.

7. Activate Polygon selection. In Left viewport, select opposing polygons between body and head. There are 16 polygons you need to select. The, delete all 16 polygons.

8. Change selection to Border. Select two borders (2 holes in object). Then, in Edit Borders rollout, click Bridge button to connect head and body. You've created a neck..

9. This is your duck object so far..

We need a little bit of space to create eyes later.

2. Next step is creating the beak. Change to Edge selection. In Left viewport, select ring of edges (a total of 10) like image below. In Edit Edges rollout, click Connect to create new edges.

3. Next, select a ring of edges (a total of 10) above the previous ones. This time, click Settings button right next to Connect. A small dialog box will appear. Fill slide=36 and press OK. You will get new edges like image below. When finished, de-activate all sub-object selection.

4. Apply Symmetry modifier to object. In Parameters rollout, turn on Flip to mirror left and right side. Click plus (+) sign in Editable Poly row. Highlight Edge selection. In Edit Geometry rollout, click Cut button. We will cut several polygons. Before you begin, activate 3D Snap Toggle. This will help you cut polygons precisely. Now, in Perspective viewport, cut like image below (from 1 to 4). When finished, right click to end cutting. Tehn, de-activate all sub object selection.

5. In viewport, right click object and choose Convert to>Convert to Editable Poly. Go to Modify tab and activate Polygon selection. Select couple of polygon in mouth area (10 polygons). Tips: Ctrl+click to select more than one polygon. In Edit Polygons rollout, click Settings button right next to Extrude. Enter Extrusion Height=12 and click OK.

6. Reduce selected polygons from 10 to 8 polygons (Alt+click to deselect un-necessary polygons). In Edit Polygons rollout, click Settings button right next to Bevel. In opened dialog box, fill in Height=10 and Outline Amount=-2. Add bevel with this values twice.
After that, activate Vertex selection. In Top viewport, using Select And Move Tool and Select And Non-Uniform Tool modify beak shape like image below.

7. Still in Vertex selection, activate Use Soft Selection with Falloff=50. In Left viewport, select vertices at the tip of beak, and move them up. When finished, de-activate soft selection and all sub-object selection.

8. Your capsule is now looks more like a duck than before..

Activate Edge Selection. In Left viewport, use Cut to create wing shape. Before you cut, in Selection rollout, activate Ignore Backfacing. This way, when you cut, you can avoid cutting polygons behind. There are 2 area you need to cut. As always, right click to finish cutting. After finished cutting, turn off Ignore Backfacing again.

2. Change selection to Polygon and select all polygons that form wing. In Edit Polygons rollout, click Settings button right next to Bevel. Add Bevel with Height=5 and Outline Amount=-5. Click OK.

3. Rotate Perspective view and zoom in eye area. Select two polygons that form an eye. In Edit Polygons rollout, click Inset button. In viewport, click and drag to to add Inset twice. Second Inset should create much smaller polygons. Beware, don't make them too small, because polygons can intersect. That smaller polygons is to be used as pupil.

4. Change selection to Vertex. In Edit Geometry rollout, change Constraints to Edge, then move 2 vertices on left of pupil to the right. That will make pupil shape more square. By setting Constraints to Edge, we can easily moving vertices along edges and not damaging head shape. When finished, set Constraints back to None again.

5. Change selection to Edge. Select edges like image below (a total of 6 edges). Use Ctrl+click to select more than one edge. In Edit Edges rollout, click Settings button right next to Extrude. Fill Extrusion Height=-2 and Extrusion Base Width=1.2. Click OK. When finished, turn off all sub-object selection.

6. To finish our modeling, add Turbosmooth modifiier to duck object. If you need more smoothing result, use Iterations=2.

7. Rendered finished model.

Before using Multi/sub Object material, plan by dividing object into parts. Each part has its own sub-material. For example I divide duck object into 4 parts. Each part should have its own material ID. Look at image below carefully.

2. Activate Polygon sub object selection. Select all polygons forming eyes. (a total of 4). Use Ctrl+click to select more than one polygons. After that, in Polygon Properties enter Set ID=1. This ID is the same with the one you planned earlier. Note: always press Enter after entering number. Next, you need to assign other object part (polygons) to different ID.

3. Select outer part of eye area and use ID=2. For easy selection, while inner part of eyes is still selected, click Grow in Selection rollout twice. Then, you just need to deselect polygons in inner area (Alt+click).

4. Select polygons forming body, and use ID=3. For easy selection, select inner eye area first, then click Grow twice. Pres Ctrl+I to invert selection. Then, deselect un-necessary polygons.

5. Last one, select polygons forming beak and use ID=4. For easy selection, select polygon at the tip of the beak, press Grow four times, then Ctrl+click to add more polygons.When finished, de-activate all sub-object selection..

6. Open Material Editor. Select one of unused material slot. Name this material "duck". Click Standard button. In Material/Map Browser window choose Multi/Sub-Object Material. 3dsmax will asked to keep old material as sub-material, just click OK. After you change to this material type, its parameters will change. In Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters rollout, click Set Number button. Enter 4, same as duck object part we set earlier.

7. Click button under Sub-Material, with ID=1 (01 - Default). Name this sub-material "eye black" and change Diffuse color to pure black. When finished, click Go To Parent button to go back to Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters.

8. Do the same process above to other sub-material, until you have 4 different sub-material like image below. I use different Diffuse Color to each sub-material. When finished, go back to Multi/Sub-Object Basic Parameters rollout, make sure duck object is selected and click Assign Material to Selection button to apply this material to duck object. Your duck object is now textured.

9. Apply Turbosmooth modifier again. Add some light and render. This image below is rendered using Light Tracer. If you want to know how to lit using Light Tracer, read this tutorial.

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