It is not by accident that we chose the loft command in max to use for making a boat. It is exactly the samy thing done in real life for centuries.

To use loft we need some previously prepared lines. We will split the boat into parts and from its contours we will get the needed lines.

From top down you have lines of the boat, side view, one line that presents the lenght and top view.

Name your lines as you wish, now you can do some tweaking in vertex subobject mode using fillet option to round corners.

Switch to top view, select contour and from create panel, geometry choose from the list Compound object. There choose Looft command. From the Looft rollout choose to make an instance as a copy and choose get path, cursor will switch and in top viewport choose the line that represents the boats length. Loft object is made.

For now of the boat we only have its contour and its length. Contour and top view we will have to add in Loft Fit Deformation properties.

Switch to modifier panel with Looft boat selected and in Loft properties panel in Deformations group choose Fit. You will open a new dialog that shows you a 3d representation. Turn off Symetry (small locker in the start of toolbar) Check if your active viewport is Top and loft object selected. Than turn on Y axis and from toolbar choose get path button, (small hand), and in top viewport choose line of the contour, Loft object will be transformed.

Now it almost looks like a boat. In the same dialog activate X axis, in top viewport with get shape command from the toolbar, choose the top view line. Loft object will change once again and this time we will have a complete boat. Rotate it so that its sides match maxes layout. (top side in top viewport, front in front etc. Do not delete the lines left over from lofting yet, we will need them later.)

Change parameters of the Loft object in Caping group from percentage to path steps. Add a provisional number of shape steps and path steps (that is poligons) until you reach a wanted resolution of the boat. If you do not like the shape, you can reshape it in the scale deformations fit parameters.

This model is a closed loft object and we need an open boat. Therefore we will change this loft object to a poly object. Right click the modifier list of your object from the modifiers panel, choose convert to poly.

Go to polygon sub object mode of the boat. Turn on ignore backface in top viewport, from top down, select two thirds of the upper area of boat. Leave unselected polygons in the front of the boat. Polygons will turn red, choose delete. If you do not see a whole object in viewport, you probably have show 2 sided option turned off (later turn that on alsi in the render dialog) Right click on viewport label and choose cofigure. In propertiesturn on the show 2 sided option.

Now you should have yourself body of the boat. As it has no thickenss we will use maxes option thell and add depth to it. From the modifier list choose shell modifier. Add wanted thickness of the boat. (perhaps 2-5cm)

We will add details to the boat to get it to look more realistic.

The middle beam will be our line we used for lenght, we will delete its upper segment in segment sub object mode.

Align the line to the middle of the boat and add it a sweep modifier.

In sweep modifier properties, choose bar from the list and set its radius until you get wanted look of the central beam. If need arise with move transform tool move the beam so that it rests on the boat. Use the same procedure to align the upper line on top of the model. Also choose bar option and set its radius until you get the wanted border of the boat.

Just seats and materials left to go. Seats will be made from chamfer box objects. From the create panel, choose extended primitives than chamfer box.

Draw two boxes similar to those in the picture. Thickness can match the boats wich you defined in the shell properties modifier. Arrange them by Y axis under the top of the boats border. Check front and back viewports so that seats dont go out of boats body.

Open materials editor. We will make two wood materials. One for body and other of border and seats. Choose first free slot and make phong type of shader, for ambiance color choose black and for diffuse brown color of wood. In difuse maps choose bitmap and find on your 3DS Max installation maps than wood directory. There you will find cedefence or fence. One of these two you can use for boards on the boats body. Choose that map, go back to materials, maps and drag that map to bumps slot. That way you will add an instance copy. Set material for boats body and  turn on show maps in viewpord. Material is still not aplied correctly, and that is because we did not add a UVW map modifier and set mapping for the object. From the modifier list, on selected boat add UVW mapping modifier and choose box for type of mapping.  Materials still dont look that good dont they. Go back to materials editor, go into map that you added in diffuse slot and in first group coordinates in andle change W value from 0 to 90. Now your map should fit nicely on the boat. Probably that the map will fit in first try but if it does not and it seems that number of horisontaly positioned boards is too large or small you can play with tiling values. Make another material with the same parameters as first one but instead of cedefence or fence wood map, choose something else like Oldwood or Ashen. Add the other material to the central beam, border and seats. Your boat is complete.

 done by neutrino  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it