Chair Modeling - Spline Technique | 3D Max Tutorial for Interior Design

This is a basic tutorial of the Florence Design Academy to understand how to use the SPLINES effectively in the field of Interior/Furniture Design. This tutorial is based only on splines. It is very important that your chair has the correct dimensions, otherwise the rendering with Mental Ray will not be optimal. Let's begin our tutorial.

Create a rectangle in the TOP view. Make a right mouse button click (RMC) on it and choose convert to editable spline.

Select the segments like shown in the image below and press the button DIVIDE. Put the number 2 in the textbox and click on the button DIVIDE. This will create 2 additional vertexes on each selected segment.

Select all vertexes and click with right mouse button. Now choose CORNER (there are 4 different types of vertexes: Corner, Smooth, Bezier and Bezier Corner). This step will make the next steps easier.

Now select the vertexes like shown in below step 1 and move them down and left to get the shape of step 2. After this step select the vertexes of step 2 and move them right to get the shape of step 3. The end result seems to be a flipped letter C.

Important: remember that in the front view you see only one side of the chair. Make always a REGION selection to be sure that you are selecting the vertexes on both sides of the chair.

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This is now what you can see in the perspective view.

To create a 3D Object you must go to the modify panel and enable 2 slots which are: Enable in Renderer and Enable in Viewport. This will transform your spline in a object in which you can choose to change a few parameters. For our chair we need a radial section. Choose Radial and write in the thickness slot the diameter size.

Select all vertexes and go to the command FILLET. This will round your sharp corners.

Create a new spline with the shape of the letter L.

Check again the slots enable in renderer and enable in viewport. Now select the vertex like in the picture and fillet it.

Change the left view to a right view. In this way we can see the circular shape of our spline. Now create a circle (spline) in the center of the circular section of the spline like in the image. You need to convert it into an editable spline to be able to work with the vertexes of the circle.

Select the vertex like in the image, and BREAK it. This will split a single vertex in 2 vetexes and break the circle.

Select the upper vertex and move it to the right side. Transform the vertex with a right mouse button click into a CORNER vertex.

Move the lower vertex like in the image and use the Bezier (also Bezier-corner works very good in this situation).

Now select SPLINE and MIRROR it with COPY. Move the copy to the opposite side of the chair. Move it only in the X axis. You can mirror the spline from the modify panel or just using the Mirror tool. If you use the Mirror tool you have to ATTACH the two splines to be able to weld the vertexes.

Select the 2 vertexes. Now go to the Weld button. Insert a big number in the weld slot and click weld. The number you must write in the slot must be equal or bigger than the distance between the vertexes that you are welding. The easiest way is just to write a very big number like 100000.