In older versions of 3ds Max, if you wanted to create a complex polygonal object, your best modeling strategy would be to collapse a primitive object to an editable poly object and work from there. But if you wanted to use additional modifiers in the stack, you had no way of performing work on the editable poly at a level other than at the bottom of the stack.
But now you can use the Edit Poly modifier, which implements the functionality of the editable poly object as a modifier. This modifier lets you create poly objects any way you need to. Because the Edit Poly modifier can appear anywhere in the modifier stack, in multiple locations if appropriate, you can model parametrically, retaining the modeling and animation flexibility you need.
In this tutorial you will go through the process of using the Edit Poly modifier to build, alter, and animate a toy spaceship. You'll perform all of the modeling with this single modifier.