In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a 3D floor plan model from an 2D architectural drawing. Karan Shah will show you some simple, yet effective techniques for constructing the walls, windows and doors following a basic interior schematic in Blender. With the model complete we’ll add materials and textures, and do a final render of the scene.

Additional Files/ Plugins:

• Floor Plan Schematic

Step 1

Floor Plans are simply a drawing or a diagram showing a top view of a site layout. You can see the picture to understand the meaning of some basic symbols used. More can be found
here (pdf).

Step 2

In a new file, select all objects with the ‘A’ key and press ‘Del’ to delete them. Press ‘N’ to bring up our View properties. In the Background Image Panel, add your reference image. Here I have used image courtesy ofLiamKeiranCooper Ltd who kept the picture in public domain.

Step 3

Press ‘7’ on the NumPad to get into the Top view. Here you can see the background image. The view must be set to ‘orthographic’ in order to see the image. You can toggle between the ortho and perspective views with the ‘5’ key on the Numpad. Press Shift+A and add a Plane.

Step 4

With the Plane selected, press ‘TAB’ to get into ‘Edit’ mode. Select all the vertices with the ‘A’ key, or press ‘B’ to drag select them. Press ‘G’ and move them to the top left corner. You toggle the viewport shading between solid and wireframe with ‘Z’ key. Press ‘S’ and move the mouse to scale them down to fit the width of the wall (as shown below.)

Step 5

Now we will cover all the black solid areas i.e. the walls. This will include the windows as they are part of the walls and will be added later. Any type of door whether it’s a slider or normal, is to be left out. Select the bottom two vertices (press ‘B’ to drag select or Hold ‘Shift’ and Right click for multiple select.) And move them down just before the wall turns left. Press ‘E’ and extrude the wall again until you reach the edge.

Step 6

Select the right two vertices and press ‘E’ to extrude, and match the reference.

Step 7

Now, in order to extrude out a face from the middle, we need to add an Edge Loop. Hover your mouse over the face, and press ‘CTRL+R’ and Left Click to confirm. Move the mouse up and down and then Left click again to confirm its position.

Step 8

Create another edge loop just below the previous one using the same method, matching the width of the wall to be extruded.

Step 9

Select the two vertices and extrude the wall.

Step 10

Create another edge loop on the corner and extrude the right edge.

Step 11

Using the techniques above (extrude and edge loop division) fill all the solid black lines of the reference image with the mesh.

Step 12

To start a new separate wall, duplicate the last edge and then start extruding it. Select the last edge and press ‘Shift+D’ to Duplicate it, and left click to confirm. Move it with the Move control widget or press ‘G’ key of the keyboard. And continue extruding the mesh along to match the reference.

Step 13

Complete the walls with the techniques you learned from above steps.

Step 14

After completing the wall, select all the vertices and then press ‘E’ to extrude them along the Z axis. Now we see that the structure is taking shape. The height should be equivalent to a door.

Step 15

Press ‘Ctrl+TAB’ and select ‘Edge’ in the mesh select mode menu. Select the top two corner edges of a door (hold shift + right click to multiple select) and press ‘F’ to make a Face between them. Do this for all doors. Refer to your image and always check from all views.

Step 16

Press ‘3’ on the Numpad to get into side view, and Press ‘Z’ to get into wireframe view so that we can see all the vertices behind are visible and can be selected. Press ‘B’ to drag select all the top vertices or edges, then Press ‘E’ to extrude them. This will reach the final height of the wall.

Step 17

Now we will place the windows. Press ‘TAB’ to get out of the Edit mode, and in object mode, press ‘Shift+A’ and add a ‘Cube’. In the Top view, size (press ‘S’ to scale) and place it where the window is on the reference image.

In the side view, the top part of window should align to the top of door. Press ‘TAB’ to enter into the edit mode to adjust the vertices. Adjust the bottom height of the window too. The width of the cube should be such that it should be half inside and half outside. See image below.

Step 18

Select the Wall mesh with Right click, and in the Properties button window, click on ‘Object Modifiers’.

Click on ‘Add Modifiers’ and select ‘Boolean’.

Step 19

In the Boolean modifiers panel, select ‘Cube’ in the Object, and ‘Difference’ under ‘Operation’.

To see the effect – Select the cube and press ‘H’ to hide it. You will see that there is a “hole” in the wall the size and shape of the cube. Press ‘Alt+H’ to ‘Unhide’ the Cube.

Step 20

Now select the Cube (window) and in the ‘Edit’ mode, select all the vertices and press ‘Shift+D’ to make a duplicate. Place this new cube in the location of the next window.

Now press ‘Tab’ to get out of ‘Edit’ mode, and select the Wall mesh and press ‘Apply’ in the ‘Boolean’ Modifier panel. The holes are now part of the geometry.

Move the Cube to see the windows.

Step 21

Similarly create all the needed windows with this Boolean modifier. Try doing them one by one, adjust the size and position of the cube according to the specific window.

Step 22

Now we will create the Floor. In ‘Object’ mode and in the Top view, press ‘Shift+A’ and add a ‘Plane’. Press ‘Tab’ to get into ‘Edit’ mode and adjust the vertices accordingly so that it covers the walls. Create Edge Loops or Extrude the edges where necessary.

Step 23

Make sure that there are no gaps between the edges of the floor and walls. Also in the Side view, move the floor down so it’s aligned with the bottom of the walls.

Step 24

To make doors, add a new’Cube’. And in ‘Edit’ mode, press / on the Numpad for Local view (this will show only the selected object.)  In the Top view, Move or Scale the vertices to give it a nice shape. Refer to the image for the height and width.

In the Top view, and in ‘Edit’ mode. Move all the vertices of the door along the Y axis, so that the center point of the object (orange dot) should be at the corner (see image.) This will set the transform orientation of the object from that corner. Press ‘TAB’ to get out of edit mode and then press’R’ to Rotate and see the difference.

Step 25

While in the edit mode, add a new ‘Cylinder’. Rotate and scale it down to create the doorknob (you can add more details if you like.) Press ‘TAB’ to get out of edit mode.

Step 26

With the help of the reference image, place the doors in the correct positions (press ‘Shift+D’ to make duplicates.)

Step 27

Now we will create the window frame. Start with another new ‘Cube’, and press ‘TAB’ to enter into ‘Edit’ mode. Press the ‘Z’ key to toggle wireframe view, so that we can select the back vertices too. Press ‘3’ on the Numpad to get into side view and then extrude the faces as shown in the image to make the window frame. Press ‘TAB’ to exit out of edit mode, and press / on the numpad again to get back to the scene.

Step 28

Scale and place the window frames on the walls. Make duplicates and place them according to the image.

Step 29

Now we will add a texture to the floor. Right Click on the Floor object to select it. And in the Properties window, click on the ‘Materials’ Icon. Add a New material and name it ‘Floor’, increase the ‘Diffuse’ intensity and reduce the ‘Specular’ intensity.

Step 30

Next we will add an image to the floor. (I got mine from Here.) Click on the ‘Texture’ icon next to the Material icon, and then Click on the ‘New’ button. Select ‘Image or Movie’ for the Type and in the Image panel, click on “Open’ and browse for the image.

Step 31

You can preview the texture in the 3d View. Press ‘N’ to bring up the ‘View Properties’ and in the ‘Display’ panel, select GLSL in the ‘Shading” menu (you’ll need to add some lights in the 3d view to see the texture.) Now press ‘N’ again to hide the view properties panel.

Back to the Image Texture properties, scroll down to the Mapping Panel and increase the Size of X and Y to5 or 6 depending upon your image file.

Step 32

Now to add a separate floor to the Bathrooms, we will add a new ‘Plane’ and adjust it’s dimensions and place it just above the wooden floor so that it’s hidden.

Apply an image, just like we did on the floor (I got mine from Here.) Duplicate the Plane and adjust it’s geometry by scaling and extruding for the second bathroom.

Step 33

Select the walls and add a New material to them. Choose any color and Increase the ‘Diffuse’ intensity and set the ‘Specular’ to 0.0

Similarly assign the materials to the windows and doors. You can assign the same material to any object by selecting the material from the list.

Step 34

Now we will prepare the scene for rendering. Make sure you are Not in ‘Edit’ mode (press ‘TAB’ to toggle Edit mode on/off.) Press ‘7’ on the Numpad to get into the Top view, then press ‘Shift+A’ to add a camera.

Rotate and place it however you like. Press ‘0’ on the Numpad to get into camera view.

Step 35

Click on the ‘World’ settings and change the ‘Horizon Colour’ to white, then turn on ‘Ambient Occlusion’ and in the ‘Gather’ panel, increase the samples to 16. In the 3D view delete any lights if they exists.

Step 36

Click on the ‘Render Settings’ button in the property window, and change the Dimensions (resolution) to your desired size. Down in the ‘Output’ panel, choose the file format for your render.

Press ‘F12’ or click on the ‘Image’ button in the render panel. Press ‘F3’ or click on ‘Image > Save image as‘ to save the image.

Your 3D Floor map is now ready!

In today’s Quick-tip tutorial, Edgar Mihailov shows artists new to Maya, and/or it’s relatively new Vray plugin, how to utilise High Dynamic Range Images (HDRIs) to illuminate your scenes, providing realistic reflections in the process. HDRI is now a standard across almost all rendering software and it’s an extremely useful thing to learn how to use!

Hi everyone! In this tutorial I will be showing you how to first enable Global Illumination (GI) within your scene, and then we’ll add an HDRi map using Vray for Maya. I will be using Maya 2011, but the process is extremely similar in some of the older versions of Maya (up to a point of course!) This tutorial is intended for people who are new to Vray itself, or just the Vray for Maya plugin.

I can’t actually share the HDR image I use in the tutorial, however there are a reat many places on the web where you can download free HDRIs to use in your scenes (though please always be aware of commercial restrictions.) A great website for free HDRi maps is http://www.openfootage.net/, but I would advise you to buy at least one good HDRi map pack, as they are typically of higher quality and allow you to achieve the results below in your commercial projects.

Step 1

For the purpose of this tutorial I made this very simple scene. It’s essentially just a sphere, a plane for the floor, and a cross shape (which is nothing more than an extruded cube). Although simple, this will be more than enough to allow us to correctly set up our HDRI, and clearly see the results.

Step 2

Before we can start we first have to make sure that the Vray plugin is loaded. To do this, click Window on the top menu bar, and then hover your cursor over Settings/Preferences and a menu will pop up. Once it’s opened, choose the very bottom Plug-in Manager.

Step 3

Maya’s Plugin Manager menu will appear. Scroll all the way down to the bottom and make sure thatvrayformaya.mll is checked as Loaded. If you do a lot of work with Vray, you might want to check Auto-loadas well, which will make the plugin load up everytime Maya starts.

Note : If you don’t see a vrayformaya.mll entry in the list, make sure you have installed the plugin correctly. If you reinstall the plugin, make sure you restart Maya before re-checking the Plugin Manager.

Step 4

Now we have to switch our rendering engine to Vray. To do so, switch to the Rendering menu-set (by using the dropdown menu underneath the File and Edit menus on the top bar), then go to Render > Render Using > V-Ray.

Note: You can also see here the other renderers you have access to on the system. By default, Maya comes with Maya Software, Maya Hardware, Maya Vector and Mental Ray – all of which are covered heavily in the documentation.

Step 5

After that is done we have to go in and set up our materials. Go to Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade to open Maya’s main material editor/creator.

Step 6

In the image below you can see the Hypershade. On the right are the 3 existing material nodes in the scene, and on the left is a list of all of the material nodes you can create. We want to create a standard Vray material, so click twice where it says “VRay Mtl” to create two materials. As you do this, the new materials will pop up in the right hand side of the Hypershade. For this tutorial only these two materials will be needed.

Step 7

Now double-click on one of the materials that we just created to open up the Attribute Editor. (This may appear as a floating panel, or docked to the right hand side of the main window.) In the Attribute Editor go to the Reflection section and change the Reflection Color to white by sliding the slider all the way to the right. This makes the material fully reflective – it is essentially now a mirror. We don’t need to alter the other material as the standard settings will do for this test. Whilst I won’t name the materials here, I strongly advise you to give each material a descriptive name if you’re putting together a complex scene.

Note : If the Attribute Editor doesn’t open, click once on your new material and hit CTRL+A to open it.

Step 8

To apply our new materials to our objects, hover your cursor over the material in the right side of theHypershade, hold down the middle mouse button, move your mouse over the object you want to apply your material to, and then release to apply it. Using this method, I applied our mirror material to the sphere object, and the other default grey material to the floor plane and the cross object.

Step 9

Now we have to change our render settings and add in our HDRI. To do this, go to Window > Rendering Editors > Render Settings

Step 10

We’re now going to enable Global Illumination, a key part of making the HDRI work as it allows us to take into account any light coming from our environment within the scene. Switch to the Indirect Illuminationtab and make sure that the first check box is turned on to enable GI. For this simple test I’ll leave the rest of the settings at their default values, but you should feel free to experiment. For instance, the Primary Bounces Multiplier can be increased to brighten up a dark scene, which can be useful for some HDR images.

Step 11

In order to use an HDRi map for our overall lighting, we have to switch to the VRay tab and tick Override Environment. If we were to do a test render now, the scene would be a light blue color instead of pitch black. That blue color is coming from the GI texture swatch as shown in the image below. This is where we’re going to need to add in our HDRI.

Step 12

Before we can do that however, we have to create a material for our HDRi map. So head back into theHypershade (Window > Rendering Editors > Hypershade) and click the Textures tab as shown at 1 in the below image. We need to create a File texture to load in our HDRI, but it might not be easy to find in the list of available materials/textures. To speed up this process, type File into the search bar shown at 2 in the below image. This will quickly allow you to find a specific texture node. Once done, click once on the Filenode shown at 3 – it should appear in the right hand side of the Hypershade.

If you have stuff in your “Work Area”, click the eraser icon to clear it.

Step 13

Click once on the new File node to select it and hit CTRL+A to bring back the Attribute Editor. Once there, click on the folder icon next to Image Name and navigate to/select your HDRI map. It might take a while to load depending on the speed of your computer and size of the map.

Step 14

Now open both the Render Settings window and the Hypershade window side-by-side. Just like when we applied the materials to our objects, we need to hover over the HDRI File node in the Hypershade, hold down the middle mouse button, move the mouse over to the black swatch next to Background Texture and then release. Maya will automatically add the File texture into this slot for us. We now need to repeat this process for the GI texture, Reflection texture and Refraction texture slots.

Note: Ideally you should use a low-res, slightly blurred version of your HDRI in the GI Texture slot, as it provides much smoother lighting throughout the scene. The 3 other slots should all use the high-res version.

Step 15

You may notice that you can now see your image in the main viewport. If it looks as expected feel free to skip this step, however if your HDRi map is rotated sideways you may need to do the following…

Go back to the Render Settings, and in the Environment tab click where it says Edit UV Placement. As all of our maps are using the same file, altering one UV Placement affects all of the maps, however if you’re using multiple maps you would need to repeat this fix for each one of them.

In the Attribute Editor, change the Vertical rotation from 0 to 90, which will rotate our image map 90 degrees, hopefully lining it up straight! If it’s still not straight, feel free to change the number until it looks correct.

Step 16

Our materials and HDRI are now all in place so it’s time to render! From the top menu, go to Render > Render Current Frame.

Step 17

Once completed, your render should look something like this. Now go and experiment with different HDRIs to see the wide range of results you can achieve! If you have any questions feel free to leave them below. Thanks!

1. Creating a Basic Scene

Step 1

Open 3ds Max.

Step 2

I have made a simple scene. I have put three objects with some distance between each other.

Step 3

Press Ctrl-C to create a camera in the perspective view.

2. Set Object ID

Step 1

With the teapot selected, do a right click and select Object Properties.

Step 2

It opens the Object Properties window. Set the Object ID value as 1.

Step 3

Following the same way, set the Object ID value of the cylinder as 2.

Step 4

Following the same way, set the Object ID value of the box as 3.

3. Rendering in RPF Format

Step 1

Press Shift-Q or F9 key to render the scene.

Step 2

Click on Save Image icon. It opens the Save Image window. Set the file name as Diffuse and select the file format as RPF. Click on Save button.

Step 3

It opens the RPF Image File Format window. Choose 16 Bits per channels option. Turn on all options. Click on OK button.

4. Compositing in After Effects

Step 1

Open After Effects. Import the Diffuse.RPF file in the timeline. You will notice the file has come with all properties like Z-depth, Object ID, Z–coverage etc.

Step 2

With the Diffuse.RPF layer selected, go to Effects > 3D Channel > ID Matte.

Step 3

In ID Matte effect, the default value of ID Selection is set to 0.

Step 4

Set the ID Selection value as 1. You will see that only the teapot is visible. This happens because in 3ds Max, I had set the object id value of the teapot as 1.

Step 5

Make the duplicate layer of Diffuse.RPF layer by pressing Ctrl-D key.

This time, set the ID Selection value to 2. The cylinder gets highlighted, because in 3ds Max, I had set the object id of the cylinder as 2.

Step 6

Once again, make the duplicate layer of Diffuse.RPF layer by pressing Ctrl-D key. This time, set the ID Selection value to 3. The box gets highlighted also, because in 3ds Max, I had set the object id of the box as 3.

Step 7

You can give proper name to the layers as Teapot, Cylinder and Box. Bring the diffuse layer once more in the background to get the floor.

Step 8

Now you can control the individual layer. For example, if you want to change the color of the teapot, just select the teapot layer, go to Effect > Color Correction > Hue/Saturation.

Step 9

Change the Master Hue value and you will see the color of the teapot changes accordingly.

Step 10

Following the same way, you can apply Glow to the cylinder layer. This way, you can control any layer individually and apply any effect.

5. Z Depth Compositing in After Effects

Step 1

With the diffuse layer selected, go to Effect > 3D Channel > 3D Channel Extract.

Step 2

With Z Depth channel selected, it looks like as shown in the following image.

Step 3

You can play with the Black and White values to get the perfect Z depth. Just remember that the nearest object to the camera remains in white and as it travels far, it becomes grey.

Step 4

With the layer selected, press Ctrl-Shift-C to pre compose. Rename the pre composed layer as Diffuse.rpfComp 1.

Step 5

Bring the Diffuse layer in the timeline. Turn off the pre composed layer.

Step 6

Apply S_Z Blur effect on the Diffuse layer. Alternatively you can use Camera Lens Blur. It makes the entire layer blurred.

Step 7

Pick the pre composed layer as the Z Buffer channel. Now you get the real depth of field in the image. The front teapot looks in the focus while the cylinder and box look out of focus.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, I showed you how to control the individual object in the layer by using just one pass. This is the beauty of RPF file format. It contains almost every channel like Z Depth, Object ID, Material ID, Z Coverage etc and every channel could be controlled by using just one layer.

In the next part of the tutorial, I will show you the most useful and powerful file format used in the industry to control everything.

1. Creating a Basic Scene

Step 1

Open 3ds Max. Draw a plane in the perspective viewport.

Step 2

Make a teapot and put it on the plane.

Step 3

I’ve applied several lights in the scene. I’ve chosen Ray Traced Shadows as the shadow.

Step 4

Press M to open the Material Editor. Select an empty slot. Click on Reflection channel.

It opens the Material/ Map Browser. Select Raytrace and click on OK.

Step 5

Apply this material to the plane.

Step 6

Increase the Specular level and Glossiness of the teapot.

Step 7

Render the scene. You get one rendered frame. In this rendered frame, you get Diffuse Color, Shadow,Specularity and Reflection.

Right now, you can’t control individual channel. It will affect the entire frame. You’ll need to render each and every pass separately.

2. Multi Pass Rendering in 3ds Max

Step 1

Press F10 to open Render Settings window. Click on Render Elements tab.

Step 2

Click on Add button. It opens Render Elements window. Select Diffuse and click on OK.

Step 3

Following the same way, click on Add button and add Reflection, Shadow and Specular.

Step 4

You have successfully added these 4 passes in the Render Element list.

Step 5

With Diffuse pass selected, click on Browse tab.

Step 6

Save the file as Diffuse.TGA.

Step 7

It opens Targa Image Control window. Choose 32 Bits-Per-Channel option. Click on OK.

Step 8

Following the same way, save the Reflection, Shadow and Specular files in TGA format.

Step 9

Click on Render button.

Step 10

You will get 4 different rendered frames for each individual pass.

Step 11

This is Diffuse pass.

This is Reflection pass.

This is Shadow pass.

This is Specular pass.

3. Compositing in After Effects

Step 1

Open After Effects.

Step 2

Import all passes inside After Effects and put them on the timeline in order.

Step 3

To get all passes at the right place, you need to put them in order. Keep the order of the passes as shown in the following image. With the Reflection pass selected, change its blending mode to Screen.

Step 4

Now you get the final composited scene.

Step 5

The beauty of this process is that, you can control each individual pass separately. If you want your shadow a bit light, you can decrease the Opacity value of the Shadow layer, and it will affect the shadow only. All other layers/ passes will be unaffected.

Step 6

If you want to make the reflection blurred, just apply Gaussian Blur effect to the Reflection layer. Play with the blur value, and it will affect the reflection only.

Conclusion

Multi pass rendering and compositing is a great time saver technique. It not only saves the time, but also enables the compositor to work more efficiently and independently on the compositions.

In the next part of the tutorial series, I’ll show you some more important passes in 3ds Max,  RLA, RPF andOpen EXR format which make the compositing process even much better.

Preview

1. Creating the Chain

Step 1

Open 3ds Max. Go to Shapes > Splines > Ellipse and draw an oval shape in the front viewport.

Step 2

With the oval shape selected, open the Rendering rollout tab. Turn on Enable In Renderer and Enable In Viewport options. Increase the Thickness value to 7.

Step 3

Right click on the oval shape and turn it into Editable Poly.

Step 4

With the oval poly shape selected, click on Hierarchy panel. Enable Affect Pivot Only option and drag the pivot of the oval poly shape to the extreme right.

Don’t forget to turn off the Affect Pivot Only option after that.

Step 5

Make a copy of the oval poly shape and rotate it. Both objects must not intersect each other.

Step 6

Make several copies of the oval shapes to form a chain link.

2. Creating Constraint

Step 1

With the chain selected, go to Mass FX toolbar and select Set Selected as Dynamic Rigid Body option.

Step 2

With the first oval poly shape from the left side selected, go to Constrains > Create Universal Constraint.

Step 3

It creates a UConstraint at the pivot point of the oval poly shape.

Step 4

For the first oval poly object, its parent would be the next oval poly object.

Click on Parent tab and select the next oval poly object as the parent of the first oval poly object. Turn onFree radio buttons of Swing Y, Swing Z and Twist properties.

Step 5

You can lower the UConstraint icon size also. Put a smaller value in Icon Size.

Step 6

Following the same way, with the next oval poly object selected, go to Constraints > Create Universal Constraint.

Step 7

It creates a UConstraint at the pivot point of the oval poly shape.

Step 8

For this oval poly object, its parent would be the next oval poly object. So, click on Parent tab and select the next oval poly object as the parent of the selected oval poly object. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y, Swing Z and Twist properties.

Step 9

Following the same way, keep making constraints for each oval poly object one by one. After a couple of minutes, you will have the completed chain.

Step 10

Create a sphere. Put it at the end of the chain link. This will act as the wrecking ball.

Step 11

Put the pivot of the sphere at the edge of the sphere as shown in the following image.

Step 12

Make this sphere as a dynamic rigid body.

Step 13

Apply Universal Constraint to the sphere.

Step 14

For this sphere object, its parent would be the first oval poly object. Click on Parent tab and select the first oval poly object as the parent of the selected sphere object. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y, Swing Z and Twist properties.

Step 15

Create a small low poly sphere at the extreme right end of the chain.

Step 16

This time, make this sphere as a Kinematic Rigid Body.

Step 17

With the indicated oval poly object selected, apply Universal Constraint to it.

Step 18

Select the low poly sphere as the parent of it. Turn on Free radio buttons of Swing Y and Swing Z. Keep the radio button of Twist turned off.

Step 19

With the wrecking ball sphere selected, click on Mass FX Tool icon. Inside the Mass FX Tool window, go toMulti-Object Editor tab and put the Mass value as 5.

Step 20

Click on Start Simulation icon. You will see a fine simulation of chained wrecking ball in the viewport.

3. Installing Fracture Voronoi Script

Step 1

Go to scriptspot.com and download Fracture Voronoi script.

Step 2

Save the script in the 3ds Max Scripts folder.

4. Fracture the Wall

Step 1

Create a box in the viewport to make a wall.

Step 2

With the wall selected, go to Max Script > Run Script.

Step 3

It opens the Choose Editor file window. Select the Fracture Voronoi script and click on Open.

Step 4

It opens the Fracture Voronoi script window. Click on Pick Object button and then select the wall in the viewport.

Step 5

I have set the Nb parts as 40 since I want the wall to be broken into forty different chunks. I’ve selected theUniform color option as I want all the chunks in a same color.  

Step 6

Click on Break in 40 button. It breaks the box wall into 40 pieces.

Step 7

You can further break each broken piece into several more chunks. Select a broken piece and then repeat the process from Steps 2 to 6.

5. Fracture Simulation

Step 1

With all wall chunks selected, make them as Dynamic Rigid Body.

Step 2

With all wall chunks selected, go to Multi-Object Editor tab and put the Mass value as 5. Turn on Start in Sleep Mode option.

Step 3

Click on Start Simulation button. You will see the wall shattering simulation in the viewport.

Step 4

Once you are satisfied with the simulation result, click on Bake All tab to bake all simulation.

Conclusion

Mass FX is a great dynamics tool in 3ds Max. It has replaced Reactor and has more controls over the dynamic simulation than ever.