Wall Clock - 3ds Max Modeling Tutorial

Hi, it's me again. From this 3d modeling tutorial you will learn how to create a 3D Wall Clock. We will cover only the 3d modeling process so the image you see on the left it's only for preview. Like always if you have any questions or get stuck somewhere along this 3d modeling tutorial don't hesitate to comment. Let's not waste any more time and start the 3d modeling.



Step 1: To begin this 3d modeling tutorial open or Reset Max. In Command Panel go to Create>Geometry and pick Cylinder. Create a Cylinder with a Radius of 35cm and Height 5cm( this are not the exact measures of a real life clock). Set the Height and Cap Segments to 1 and change the number of Side to 72. After you've create the Cylinder use the Select and Move tool to center it to the center of the grid.  To be more exact, with the cylinder selected click on Select and Move tool, you will see in the bottom of the screen the coordinates for X,Y,,Z, change the number for each of the coordinates to 0. Your Cylinder is now create and moved to the center of the grid.

Step 2: Right click on the Cylinder and select Convert to>Convert to Editable Poly. Go to Modify tab in command panel and select Polygon from Selection rollout menu. In front view select the polygon facing your way. From Edit Polygons rollout menu click the box next to Inset. Change the Inset amount to 3cm and click OK, the check mark.

Step 3: With the inset polygon still selected this time click the box next to Extrude. Change the Extrusion Height to -3cm and click OK.

Step 4: Change your selection Mode to Edge(shortcut key "2"). See the edge loop i've selected below. To do this simply select one edge and from Selection rollout menu click on Loop.

Step 5: Go to Edit Edges rollout menu and click the box next to Chamfer, Change the Chamfer amount to 2.5cm and the Segments number to 10.

Step 6: Again, make a loop edge selection, only this time for the inner edges live i've did below.

Step 7: Chamfer the edges with a chamfer amount of 0.3cm and 5 segments.

Step 8: The next thing to do in this 3d modeling tutorial is to create our Clock's hour pointer, in Front view, from Create>Geometry create a new Box with the Length 20cm, Width 3cm and Height 0.4cm. Change only the Width Segments to 2. Right click on the box and Convert it to Editable Poly.

Step 9: Go to Modify tab and form the Selection rollout menu select Vertex(shortcut key "1"). Using the Select and Move tool select the top middle vertices and move them slightly up. Move the bottom middle vertices a little bit down.

Step 10: In Front view select all the top vertices and using Select and Uniform Scale tool scale the vertices down in the X axis direction.

Step 11: As you can see our hour pointer is kind of small so press CTRL+A to select all vertices and, using the Select and Uniform Scale tool scale all vertices up in the Y axis direction.

Step 12: From Selection rollout menu sleect Edge mode. Press CTRL+A to select all of our edges. Fron Edit Edges rollout menu select the box next to Chamfer. Enter 0.05cm Chamfer amount and 1 segments. We did this because i don't want our pointer to have very sharped edges.

 Step 13: In Modify tab click on Editable Poly to exit selection mode. Go to Top View. Press F3 to turn on/off Wireframe. Hold down SHIFT and using Select and Move tool move our hour pointer down to duplicate it and create the Minutes pointer. From Object select Copy and click OK.

Step 14: Press "H" on your keyboard to open Select from Scene window. Holding down CTRL select Box001 and Box002(the pointers) and click OK the select them both.

Step 15: Use F3 to turn on wireframe and move the pointers up  like i did in the image below. You can see the center of the grid  for guideline.

Step 16: Again, press "H" to Select from Scene and select Box002. Press OK.

Step 17: Using Select and Uniform Scale to Sale down the Minutes pointer in X axis direction. You can in the image bellow, in the bottom of the screen i've scale it down in X axis direction to 73.

Step 18: Press 1 on your keyboard to change selection to Vertex mode. Select the top vertices and move the up in the Y axis direction live i've did below.

Step 19: Select our two pointers, right click on the screen and Hide Unselected. Create another Cylinder for our Seconds Pointer with the Radius of 1cm and the Height 0.2cm. Change the Height and Cap segments to 1 and the Side to 36. Using the Select and Move tool position the new created cylinder in front of the minutes and hours pointers. Center it to the center of the grid(change the X,Y,Z to 0 in the bottom of the screen).

Step 20: With our newly created cylinder selected right click on it and select Convert to>Convert to Editable Poly. In Modify tab change the selection mode to Polygon(Shortcut key "4") and select the bottom vertices i've selected below. Hold down CTRL and click on each of them to select them.

Step 21: From Edit Polygons rollout menu select the box next to Extrude and change the extrude Height to 10cm. Leave the Type to Group.

Step 22: Now select the 4 top polygons i've selected below.

Step 23: Extrude this polygons with Height of 25cm and Type Group.

Step 24: With the extruded polygons selected use the Select and Uniform Scale tool to scale them down in the X axis direction until we have a sharp seconds pointer.

Step 25: Continuing with our 3d modeling tutorial we will create the hours. Right click on the screen and Unhide All. Select the clock's frame, right click and Hide Unselected. In Command Panel, from Create>Shapes select Text. Create a text that says "12", chose any font you like and change the Size to 10cm. Using the Select and Move tool position the text like i've did below. Change only the X and Y to 0 in the bottom of the screen.

Step 26: We must move our pivot to the center of the grid.With the text selected go to Hierarchy in Command Panel, click on Affect Pivot Only. Select the Select and Move tool and change the number to 0 on all of our axis(x,y,z) in the bottom of the screen. Click again on Affect Pivot Only to finish. You now must have your pivot in the center of the grid.

Step 27: With Select and Rotate tool selected click on Angle Snap Toggle. Move the cursor over the yellow circle from Select and Rotate tool and holding down SHIFT rotate our text 30 degrees. From the Clone option pop-up window select Copy, change the number of copies to 11 and press OK.

Step 28: We now have all of our 12 hours but all of our hours show 12 a clock. To change this select every hour and set the proper number in Modify tab from text.

Step 29: Select any number/hour right click on it and Convert it to Editable Spline. In Modify tab click on Attach and after that click on all our numbers/hours to attach them all together.

Step 30: With our hours spline selected, click on Modifier List and apply and Extrude Modifier with an amount of 0.2 cm. Press F3 to turn off wireframe and using Select and Move tool move the hours right in front of the clock's frame.

 
Step 31: Right click on the screen an Unhide All. Move the Pivot to center of the grid for all of our Pointers(Hours, Minutes, Seconds). Select the one by one, go to Hierarchy, click on Affect Pivot Only, change the number to 0 for our x,y,z axis in the bottom of the screen, click to affect pivot only to finish.

Step 32: Using Select and Rotate tool rotate the pointers to point your desired hour. To this to each of our pointers individually. If you've centered the pivot correctly i will have no problems doing this.

Step 33: Select the clock's frame. In Modify tab change the selection mode to Polygon. Select the center Polygon and holding down SHIFT move it in Front to create our clock's glass. From the pop-up window select Clone to Object and click OK.

Step 34: Press "H" to Select from Scene and select our newly create glass/Object001. From the Modifier list select Shell and set the Outer Amount to 0.2cm. Using Select and Move tool position the glass to fit our Clock.

Step 35: For the final step of this 3d modeling tutorial simply select all objects and click on the colored square in the top-right corner. Select your desired color and click OK. You're done. Good job!

3D Modeling Result:

Extra Step: Lets create one more step for our 3d modeling tutorial.  I will only explain this step, there will be no screen shots so pay attention :). As you can see we have created our clock's hours but if you want to create the seconds to, here's what you must to. Basically it's the same process we did creating the hours. So from Create>Shapes create a small rectangle and position it on top of our 12 hour. Set the X and Y position to 0 like we did when we first created the hour text and center the pivot to the center of the grid. Now click on Angle snap toggle and using our Select and Rotate tool holding down SHIFT rotate 30 degrees to the right. Make 11 copies and click OK. Now create a smaller rectangle right on top of the bigger rectangle we've created first. Again, move the pivot to center of the grid. Right click on Angle Snap toggle and change the angle to 6 degree. Hold down SHIFT and rotate the rectangle 6 degrees to the right, make 59 copies. Now delete the small rectangles overlapping the big ones. Apply and Extrude modifier with 0.2 amount. and your done, this was our 3d modeling lessons. Well done!