By Renu Muthoo
I am excited to tell you about the recently available Autodesk® 3ds Max® Design 2014 Fundamentals training guide from Ascent. This year not only have we incorporated the new updates in the 2014 version of the software but have also moved the chapters around and added exercises that are geared towards Autodesk 3ds Max Design visualization users. The changes are mainly based on the feedback that was provided by the trainers who use this training guide to teach the Autodesk 3ds Max Design training classes. The goal was to help improve how the content is taught to users who want to take advantage of the robust 3D modeling system of the software and to those design professionals who want to learn to bring in their own design data from other Autodesk applications. This way the trainer can adjust his teaching strategy for custom classes for different audiences.
The changes include the following:
- The Chapter “Assembling Project Files” has been moved ahead in the training guide just after the user learns about the interface and preferences. This is intended for those users who want to directly link/import complex geometry from other applications for visualization purposes. As the modeling chapters have been moved after the link/import chapter, the trainer can then present the modeling topics as a brief lecture without the hands on exercises.
- New exercises have been added to the “Assembling Project Files” chapter which focuses on the enhanced interoperability of the Autodesk 3ds Max Design software with Autodesk Revit, AutoCAD, and AutoCAD Civil 3D. A practice has been added that brings in the ground surfaces using the Civil View feature of the Autodesk 3ds Max Design software. This practice has been added to show the students how to use the .vsp3D files created in the AutoCAD Civil 3D software.
- If students are required to create geometry in Autodesk 3ds Max Design, teach both the Modeling chapters along with their exercises. There are a few additional modeling exercises in the Appendices which can be used for additional practice.
- Many of the data sets that are used in the exercises, reference externally located files. To locate the external files, students should first set the paths which will be taught in the first exercise of the first chapter. For this purpose, a reminder note has been added with each exercise throughout the training guide. If a student gets a Missing Link warning while opening a file for exercise, ask them to set the paths as described in the first practice.
- Some of the existing exercises were moved to mimic the workflow process used during a real-world situation. Additionally, tasks were added to many exercises to explain new features that were added in the 2014 version of the software.
- The new Image Based Lighting rendering technique is added to the Lighting and Rendering chapter of the training guide. A new exercise has been added to explain the step by step use of this default technique.
We are always accepting feedback and incorporating it in our training guides. Please send it to me at feedback@ascented.com.
