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Chapter 5: Creating and Editing Primitive Objects

Caution
The various foliage objects are large models that can quickly slow down the scene if multiple copies are added to
a scene. For example, a single Banyan tree has more than 100,000 polygons. Adding several such trees to your
scene can make it quite slow. n

FIGURE 5.28
The Favorite Plants rollout shows thumbnails of the various plants.

At the bottom of the Favorite Plants rollout is a button called Plant Library that opens a dialog box where
you can see the details of all the plants, including the total number of faces. The winner is the Banyan tree
with 100,000 faces. Using the Parameters rollout, you can set the Height, Density, and Pruning values for
each of these plants. Also, depending on the tree type, you can select to show the Leaves, Trunk, Fruit,
Branches, Flowers, and Roots, and you can set the Level of Detail to Low, Medium, or High.

Tip
After some time, the Foliage set starts to feel rather limited. You can use the Help ➪ 3ds Max on the Web ➪
Download Vegetation menu to access the Autodesk Seek Web site. This site holds a repository of architecturally
related objects, including a huge selection of plants and trees. n

Railings
The Railings option lets you pick a path that the railing will follow. You can then select the number of
Segments to use to create the railing. For the Top Rail, you can select to use No Railing or a Round or
Square Profile and set its Depth, Width, and Height. You can also set parameters for the Lower Rails, Posts
(which appear at either end), and Fencing (which are the vertical slats that support the railing).
The Lower Rails, Posts, and Fencing sections feature an icon that can be used to set the Spacing of these ele-
ments. The Spacing dialog box that opens looks like the same dialog box that is used for the Spacing Tool,
where you can specify a Count, Spacing value, and Offsets.

Walls
Walls are simple, with parameters for Width and Height. You can also set the Justification to Left, Center,
or Right. The nice part about creating wall objects is that you can connect several walls together just like the
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