Hardsurface Tutorial Collection — VOL 01 - Motorcycle

The first volume of the Hardsurface Tutorial Collection follows one motorcycle from a flat 2D concept to a finished hard-surface model, entirely inside 3ds Max. It runs to 400 minutes and none of it is sped up, so what plays back is the model being built at the pace it was actually built at.

The level is set at beginner on purpose. It is for the artist who has learned which tools 3ds Max has without yet learning the order to use them in, and a motorcycle is a well-chosen first subject for that: curved body panels hung on a rigid mechanical frame, two problems that have to be solved in one mesh.

What you get

• ✓400 minutes of 3ds Max modelling, recorded in real time with no fast-forwarding
• ✓One motorcycle carried from a 2D concept through to a complete hard-surface model
• ✓A beginner-level route through the software, with 3ds Max the only package open
• ✓Silent capture: no voice-over track, and no subtitle file either

The way to use it is two screens — the video on one, 3ds Max on the other — and to rebuild the bike alongside it rather than watch it end to end first. Silence changes how you watch. With nothing explained aloud you read the viewport itself: which sub-object mode is live, where the supporting edges go in before a smoothing pass, how the stack is ordered when a modifier is added and when it is collapsed. Artists who learn this way often find it sticks harder than a narrated course does, because the information has to be taken off the screen rather than handed over.

Before you start

One thing is assumed: a working familiarity with 3ds Max, enough to navigate the viewport and drive its primary functions. The finished model and the project files are not in the download. This is the process rather than the asset, and what you have at the end of it is your own motorcycle.