Detailing the Telephone

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Your telephone is almost done. Just a few more details and you're finished. In this lesson, you'll add a dial and some posts to cradle the receiver.

Set up the lesson:

Open telephone_3D.max from the \tutorials\intro_to_modeling folder.

Unhide the telephone base:

You'll have to do dome fine tuning of the receiver after you unhide the base of the telephone. Since the two pieces were modeled independently, their proportions to one another will need adjustment.

Make sure the Receiver is selected and then right-click to open the quad menu. On the Display (upper-right) quadrant, choose Unhide By Name.
Choose Telephone from the list and then click Unhide.

The telephone base appears.
Activate the Perspective viewport and click the Zoom Extents button to show the receiver and base.
Turn on Select And Move and move the receiver so it's centered a little above the top of the tower.

Positioning the receiver
The receiver seems a little out of proportion, so turn on Select And Scale and increase the scale to 150 percent.

Tip: You can enter 150 in the X field of the coordinate display below the time slider.
On the Modify panel, open the sub-object level for Symmetry and turn on Mirror mode.
Click Select And Move again and move the Mirror gizmo to the left about -8 units.

Instead of scaling the receiver along the X axis, which can distort the ear and mouth pieces, moving the Mirror gizmo affects only the middle handle part of the receiver. Watch in the Front viewport until the receiver looks like the one in the illustration.
Turn off Mirror mode and move the receiver so it's centered in the front view.

Very nice! Now you'll add the posts that will cradle the receiver.

Build the cradle details:

Right now, the receiver will just slide off the telephone. You're going to use some rectangular shapes to build the cradle, then extrude them into a 3D object.

Select both the Telephone and Receiver and right-click to open the quad menu. On the Display (upper-right) quadrant, choose Freeze Selection.
Maximize the Left viewport to get a better view of the top of the tower and receiver.
Go to the Create panel and click Shapes.
Click Rectangle to turn it on, and then draw a rectangle that matches the following illustration.
Turn off Start New Shape and create another rectangle, again matching the illustration that follows.
Right-click to turn off the Rectangle tool, then right-click again to open the quad menu.
Choose Convert To > Convert to Editable Spline.
On the Selection rollout, turn on the Spline sub-object mode, and select the first of the two rectangles you made.
Scroll down to the Geometry rollout, and click Boolean to turn it on.
Choose Subtraction (not Union), and click the other rectangle.
Turn on Vertex mode and select the top-right vertex.
Move the vertex to the left about –3 units. Watch the coordinate display below the time slider.

Note: Use the coordinate display as a reference. Do not actually enter -3 in the X field.
Select the lower-right vertex. Press X to turn off Transform gizmo display, and then move the vertex's vertical handle to the left until the line running upwards curves as shown in the following illustration.

Also move the two leftmost and the two rightmost vertices to match their positioning in the illustration.

Tip: If Autodesk VIZ won't let you move the handle to the left, display the Axis Constraints toolbar (right-click an unused portion of the main menu, and choose Axis Constraints from the pop-up menu). Click XY to turn on Restrict To XY Plane. Then move the vertex handle.
After you move the vertices, press X again to turn the transform gizmo back on.
Choose Edit > Select Invert or press Ctrl+I.

All the other vertices are now selected.
On the geometry rollout, in the Fillet value field, enter 1 and then click Fillet.
Turn off the Fillet tool and right-click to open the quad menu. Choose Convert To > Convert to Editable Poly.

Extrude the cradle:

Go to the Polygon sub-object level and select the shape.
On the Edit Polygons rollout, click Extrude Settings. This button is immediately to the right of the button labeled “Extrude.”

An Extrude Polygons dialog is displayed.
In the Extrusion Height field, enter 8.0, and then click OK.

To see the extrusion, press Alt+W to see all four viewports.
Activate the Perspective viewport and Arc Rotate the view to see the telephone from the other side.

Notice that you can see through the extrusion.

Next you are going to select the Border that represents the open edges on the extrusion. To see the border you will turn on Edged Face mode.
Right-click the Perspective viewport label and choose Edged Faces.
Turn on Border mode and select the border of the open side.

You can click one edge and the entire border will be selected.
On the Edit Border rollout, click Cap.
Right-click the Perspective viewport label again to turn off Edged Faces.
Turn off Border mode and move the cradle object to the left side of the telephone.
While holding down the Shift key, drag the cradle object to the opposite side of the telephone.

The Clone Option dialog is displayed.
In the Object group, choose Copy.
In the Name field, enter Cradle, and then click OK.
On the Edit Geometry rollout, click Attach to turn it on, then in a viewport, pick the original cradle object.

You've finished the cradle detail. Now the receiver won't slide off the telephone tower. Next you'll create a dial.

Create the dial:

It wouldn't be a telephone unless it had a dial. You'll use AutoGrid to place cylinders that will ultimately become the dial of the telephone.

Right-click the Perspective viewport and choose Unfreeze All from the Display quadrant.
If the Extras toolbar isn't already visible, right-click an unused area of the main toolbar and choose Extras from the pop-up menu.
On the Extras toolbar, click AutoGrid to turn it on.

AutoGrid lets you create an object on the surface of another object.
Go to the Create panel and click Geometry to turn it on.
Click the down-arrow next to Compound Objects, and choose Standard Primitives from the drop-down list.
Click the Cylinder button and place your cursor in the middle of the front slope of the tower. Drag outward from the center of the tower face, then release the mouse to set the cylinder's radius. Drag upward to set the height of the cylinder, and then click to finish creating the cylinder.
On the Parameters rollout, enter a Radius of 20 and a Height of 2. Also, change Height Segments to 1 and Sides to 36.
On the Name And Color rollout, change the name to Dial.
Create another cylinder on the surface of Dial, and set Radius to 2.5 and the Height to 15.

Next you'll use the small cylinder to create a circular array that has a total of twelve cylinders.

Array the smaller cylinder in a circle:

With the small cylinder selected, go to the Hierarchy panel. On the Adjust Pivot rollout, in the Move/Rotate/Scale group, click Affect Pivot Only to turn it on.
On the main toolbar, click Align to turn it on, and then press the H key to open the Pick Object dialog.
Choose Dial from the list, and then click Pick.

The Align Selection dialog is displayed.
In the Align Position (World) group, turn on the X, Y, and Z position toggles. In the Current Object and Target Object groups, choose Pivot Point, then click OK.

The pivot point of the small cylinder is set to the center of the Dial. When you create the array of small cylinders, they will be arrayed around this pivot.
On the Hierarchy panel, turn off Affect Pivot Only.
On the main toolbar, change the Reference Coordinate System from View to Local.

Using the Local reference coordinate system will allow the small cylinder to pivot around its own pivot point instead of the pivot designated by the view.
On the Extras toolbar, click Array to turn it on.

The Array dialog is displayed.

Tip: You can also access this by choosing Tools > Array.
In the Array Transformation: Local Coordinates group, set the Z Rotate value to 30. In the Array Dimensions group, set the 1D Count to 12. Click OK.

The small cylinder is arrayed in a circular pattern around the dial.
Right-click one of the small cylinders and choose Convert To > Convert to Editable Poly.

The Modify panel opens automatically.
On the Edit Geometry rollout, click Attach List. This button is immediately to the right of the button labeled “Attach.”

The Attach List dialog is displayed.
Select the first cylinder object in the list (for example, Cylinder02), hold down the Shift key, and click the last cylinder object in the list (for example, Cylinder12) to select all the small cylinders. Click Attach when done.

All the small cylinders are attached as one object now.

Attaching all the cylinders will facilitate the Boolean subtraction you'll use to cut the finger holes in the dial.

Move and subtract the small cylinders:

Turn on Select And Move and make sure the reference coordinate system is set to Local.
Move the cylinder array along its Z axis so it completely intersects the Dial object.

The small cylinders intersecting the dial in the Left view
Select the Dial object so you can make a copy of it. Hold down the Shift key while dragging along the local Z axis to create the copy.

Watch in the Left viewport so the copy does not pass above the original dial. When you release the mouse button, the Clone Options dialog appears.
On the Clone Options dialog, make sure Copy is chosen, enter Hub in the Name field, and then click OK.
On the Parameters rollout for the Hub object, change the Radius to 10 and the Height to 3.
Select the Dial object.
Go to the Create panel and click the down-arrow next to Standard Primitives. Choose Compound Objects from the drop-down list, then click Boolean to turn it on.
On the Operations rollout, make sure Subtraction (A–B) is turned on.
On the Pick Boolean rollout, click Pick Operand B, then in a viewport pick the array small cylinders.

The finger holes are cut through the dial.
Save the scene as my_phone05.max.

There you have it. Your own retro-style telephone. To see a final version of this model, open telephone_3d_finished.max from the folder.

To continue adding realism, you can try your hand at adding realistic materials. To learn more about materials and mapping, see Materials for Interior Scenes.

Also feel free to experiment further by adding more modeling details like feet underneath the base or the dial stop for your finger. Now that you're experienced in the ways of lofting, go ahead and make the cord attaching the base to the receiver.

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned to use the Loft compound object and its scale deformation tools to create objects. You also learned how to use multiple objects with the Boolean compound object to create several holes in an object at once. You can use these modeling tools for a variety of objects.