Lancewrath's Noob Tutorials

Create a Low Poly Axe

Ok To start off make sure you have the following things
3dsmax7 or higher
IMVU Previewer, get it here
The Weighted Male and Female models
MSPaint or something to do texturing with.

Ok Now open 3dsmax and then open Male03_Anime01_WeightingPoseMASTER.max You should see the IMVU model below. except i accidentally loaded IDLE pose master.

On the far right side you'll see a menu. Click on the Cylinder Object

Now change the sides to 12 since we are doing a low poly model. you can leave it higher if you wish.

Now go to the Top Viewport. If you dont have one use the top right viewport and click on the spot that says what viewport it is. probably USer and change it to top. now with the cylinder object still highlighted on the menu,
Click in the top viewport and drag the circle outward like so.

Next move the mouse and you'll see the cylinder grow in the other viewports

Now we want to use the front viewport. If there isnt one use the top right viewport and make it front. Now highlight the viewport

And maximize it by hitting the toglle view button on the bottom right of the screen

Now hit the Pan Viewport button located just left of the toggle button

now you can drag the viewport around with the mouse to see your object you made.

Now click the select and move tool located at the top of the window.

Now go down and highlight the Y axis. this will allow you to move the object up and down

now click and drag the object up toward the hand area, it may look different on yourside because i have a different male file open.

Now go to the menu on the right hand side and click the modifier tab

Click the drop down box that says modifier list anbd select Edit Mesh

Now expand the Edit mesh modifier. you'll see points on the Model with blue dots. these are called vertices or vertex. These are the points where the Traingles that make up the visible parts
Of the mesh are intersected at. Moving these will allow you to change the meshes shape.

Now we want to highlight and drag a selection box over the top vertices in the mesh. like so

Now lets move that up to make this "Axe Handle" we are making longer. Click and drag the Y axis so it looks like this

Now select the next set of vertices down, and move them down like this

Now select the other vertices and move them around to resemble this

Now select these vertices here

Good, Now we want to select the scale tool above.

You should see a triangular thing in the cross sections of the axis. click your mouse in there and drag it over, you will see it start to either shrink or grow.
Shrink it to resemble this

Now select the Move tool and move it down to look like this

Now select the bottom vertices

and shrink em

No click back on the objects tab on the menu to the right

And select cylinder again, this time change the height segments to 1. You can increase the sides if you wish. the more sides you have the smoother your axe will look.

Now in the front view point your mouse into the center of the top part of the axe handle and make a good size circle. And only drage it a little bit since this is the blade it doesnt need to be too wide.

Now select the move tool above and line it up to the axe handle

Make sure the Axe blade you created is still selected,
Now we are gonna go back to the modifier tab and click edit mesh again.

Now expand it and click on vertex. and highlight the top vertex on the blade.

Your Axe may look different than this if you chose to use more sides. I'm using a
Low poly axe so its easier to see how this is done. move the top vertex by dragging it down to the top of the axe handle.

now highlight and select the next set over and move em down a little more than halfway

If you got the idea on how to move vertices around then try to move em so they resemble an axe blade

Now we want to be able to texture this model. In order to do this we need to assign UV mapping. to do this click on the modifier list again and select UVW MAP

It should look like this

Now go into the modiefier list again and select Unwrap UVW

After that below click the button that says Edit

a window should pop up resembling this

now i need you to highlight the vertices in the UVW map like this

and squish em down somewhere out of the way for now, just remember where you put them.

Now close that UVW UNWRAP window, and select the Axe handle so its highlighted

Now we need to add UVW MAp modifier to this one too. But the map wont look the same since we created it in the top view.

So to fix this add like 200 or 300 to the U and V sizes down below, so they look like this

Now expand the UVW MAP modifier and click Gizmo, next click the rotation tool above, and highlight the center axis like this

If you have to toggle the viewport so you can see all the views again and rotate the UVW map so it looks straight up and down. like this

Now go ahead and add the UVW Unwrap modifier to it and click edit like before.
You should see this in the window

Now highlight this one and squish it somewhere other than where you put the, axe blade. you'll see why in a moment.

Go ahead and close the UVW Unwrap window and right click in the modiefier area and select collapse all

then hit ok

it should just say edit mesh again. Now scroll down below and find attach and click it.

Now click on the axe blade and it should attach the object together.

now add the Unwrap UVW modifier again and hit edit.

Now you can see the blade and the Handle in there. It's important to remember where you squicsh them too. cause if they are on top of each other its a pain in the butt to seperate the maps.

So go ahead and resize these maps how ever you see fit. this is how i did it

this is what your gonna be painting on to texture the object. So i dont know how to export the maps as a bmp. im too lazy to look. I just hit pPrint screen button on the keyboard and paste it to paint. then i just crop and resize it so it just looks like this

Ok now that, thats out of the way we need to attach this to the model. But we dont do it using the attach button like before. we have to attach it to a bone so when the arm and hand moves, so does the axe.
So click the move tool above and move it over to the left side. which is the models right hand. Like this

Now click the rotation tool and turn it so it faces toward you. like this

Now rotate it downward like this

and finally move it so it lines up like so

Now to make sure that when we export this axe the UV coordinates we made are also exported. We need to assign some material. So click rendering in the menu and then material editor

Now click the second material over and then click the button i circled

Doubleclick on bitmap on the new window

Select a texture. I selected a texturte i made for the axe. it can be any image for now.

Now apply it to the model by hitting this button

Ok now we are ready to attach the model to the bone. Go to the modifier tab and click on the modifier list and add skin

Now we want to add the bone that this axe will attach to. press add

Now look for Rthand and click select

You will see its added on the modifier skin list. Now click Edit Envelopes.

What this does is your assigning which vertices will be attached to the bone. You'll see it made a tiny little selection thingy in the hand

Now with the move tool stretch out those points so it highlights all the vertices in the axe red. like this

Ok now we are ready to export it. Select the hand so its highlighted

Now go to file and hit export

Scroll down and select Cal3d Mesh file

Name it whatever you want just make sure you type the .xmf extension, otherwise it saves it as CMF and that won't work.

Now hit Save and you should see this window

We need to select a skeleton to use. The Male model comes with the skeleton already in the correct format so hit browse and select it

After you found it hit next

hit next again

Check this box and hit next

Now hit finish

Now select the axe and do the same

export it

No go to the folder where you saved the files

right click and create new text file

open it up

Hit file open and change the file type to all files

Select the hand model you exported and open it. you should see something liek this

change the number of submeshes to 2. we are gonna combine the hand and the axe into one mesh file.

now open a new text file

and open the axe model

Now scroll over and change the material

to 1

Now scroll back and hitlight part of the info below the tag like this

and scroll down tot he bottom

Now Hold down Shift and click right after

No go to edit and copy it

Go back to the hand model file and scroll down tot he bottom and click next to

press enter to make a new line

and hit edit paste

Now the Axe model and hand model are combined in the same mesh file

Now hit save

Now we need to find a good product to derive from. For now we'll use the Derive a sword thing Maxsmoke made go here http://www.imvu.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/283410
And click derive

Now it should open the previewer, log in and you should see this

Click in the edit tab and change it to advanced mode

Now go to the geometry tab

And click Browse next to the Model thats in there, and find your hand model you just combined witht he axe one and open it

Now hit apply and you should see your axe model there now.

Now we need to assign a texture, go back to the materials tab and click M01

Now scroll down that drop box and find an xrf file. any of them will do as long as its not the main skin one

hit change texture and find the texture you made for your model

i made this quicky one for my axe

After you got your texture hit apply changes. and you should see your texture.

Now save your product and name it whatever.

Next click Submit Product to IMVU catalog

and it should take you to a page like this

Fill out the name and description, then the price (i usually do a few hundred credits over what the initial price is) and gender its for (gender may already be selected. if not select male)
Put in some keywords people can type in to find it

then finally hit submit

And now you just created an axe product for IMVU.