hi, ive been having trouble to make an ellipsoid--i can only get to the point where i get similar figures but no the actual ellipsoid.....and kind of the same problem for the hellizoid (i cant spell that, you know a helice, like a spiral staircase)

please help if you can

thanks a lot

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I don’t understand what you mean by an “actual” ellipsoid; what you’ve posted looks pretty good to me.  If you make a spline in the shape of half an ellipse and then lathe it 360 degrees, you’ve got yourself an ellipsoid.  The easiest way to make a helicoid is to make a Helix spline (one of the spline primitives), select it, go to Modify Panel > Rendering and check both Enable in Renderer and Enable in Viewport.  You can then opt for either Radial or Rectangular render to get the shape you want.

Bruce Hammond
e-nimation.com
Peterborough, NH USA

Max8-32 SP3, Max9-32 SP2, WinXP

bhnh 01 January 2008 11:22 AM

I don’t understand what you mean by an “actual” ellipsoid; what you’ve posted looks pretty good to me.  If you make a spline in the shape of half an ellipse and then lathe it 360 degrees, you’ve got yourself an ellipsoid.

Actually, Bruce, What you’re describing is a sphereoid. An ellipsoid has 3 radii, a sphereoid, only two (well, technically it has 3, but 2 are equal). wiki ellipsoid

Lilibsayis, the best way to make an ellipsoid is to make a sphere and scale it along it’s accesses. If you want to be hard core, you’d convert to an editable mesh first and then scale in sub-object mode to make sure there is no scaling at the top of the stack.

Was thinking maybe I’d make an ellipsoid simple object plug-in…

--
James Kelly
fo co mo so

Create an Ellipse (shape) of the correct proportions, convert to Editable Spline, delete half of it (segments), apply a Lathe Modifier.
Or create a sphere and apply a Stretch Modifier - less accurate but quicker to do.

A simple spiral ramp - create a Helix shape and a rectangle. Loft the Rectangle along the Helix - turn off “Banking”. A spiral staircase presents more of a problem. I would probably hand model a quarter of a turn using a couple of Helix shapes as a guide then clone and attach to make the final staircase. There are probably other (better) ways as well.

[edit] Sorry - other posts while I was looking at this [/edit]

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Ah, thanks for the correction, foco.  I knew I was on shaky ground.  :-)

Bruce Hammond
e-nimation.com
Peterborough, NH USA

Max8-32 SP3, Max9-32 SP2, WinXP

Here it is. A simple ellipsoid simpleObject. Thanks to bobo for the transformMesh function. Use it however you like…

note: if the height is set to 0, the object disappears. There’s a divide by zero error that max catches (I assume) but I didn’t want to make an arbitrarily small minimum for the height value and am too lazy to code for it.

--
James Kelly
fo co mo so

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1497_ze8xjMUEyrKoyMNabnTk.zip

Wow.  That’s terrific, James.  Very elegant.  Thank you!

Bruce Hammond
e-nimation.com
Peterborough, NH USA

Max8-32 SP3, Max9-32 SP2, WinXP

Steve Curley 01 January 2008 11:48 AM

A spiral staircase presents more of a problem. I would probably hand model a quarter of a turn using a couple of Helix shapes as a guide then clone and attach to make the final staircase. There are probably other (better) ways as well.
[/edit]

Actually, what is e Spiral Staircase?
If it is something like this, it is a Box with Path Constraint applied.
The Box is then rotated (the rotation is animated) and Snapshot is applied.
In the common practice, the path is usually a straight line I tried here the deliberately a helix.
(See Attachment.)

	Attachment

Actually, one of the options with the Stair Object (Command Panel > Create > Geometry > Stairs) is a spiral staircase with all the trimmings.

(Happy New Year, Ivan :coolsmile: )

Bruce Hammond
e-nimation.com
Peterborough, NH USA

Max8-32 SP3, Max9-32 SP2, WinXP

I know this Bruce, but to admire the philosophy of the Spiral Staircase as masterpiece of Geometry is a pleasure, which one just cannot compare with some trivial button somewhere in the interface.
Otherwise I know the option very good.  :)

Happy New Year to you my friend and to everyone else in this AREA as well.

ivan

Got it! thanks alot to everyone You have been very helpfull!