Chess Pieces

The first few modelling tutorials in Autodesk's training (accessed via Help - Tutorials in 3DS Max) walk the student through modelling some simple chess pieces - A Pawn, a Bishop, a Rook and a Knight. I misplaced the project containing the Knight I created, so I'll just list the first three.

A template was set in the Viewport Background for these pieces. I'll explain how to set that up, along with Reference Planes, in a later post.

Pawn

1. Draw a spline in the shape of half of the chess piece. (A mix of Smooth, Corner, Bezier and Bezier Corner vertex types were used in this splines creation. )
2. Apply a Lathe modifier to the spline.
3. In the Lathe parameters, select Min from the Align group. ( This sets the lathes axis of revolution to the splines left side, rather than it's pivot point. )
4. In the Lathe paremeters, increase the Segments. ( Gives the Pawn a smooth look. )
5. In the Lathe paremeters, turn on Weld Core. ( Combines all the vertices at the center of the Pawn into a single vertex. )

Bishop

1. Follow steps 1 - 5 of the Pawn tutorial, drawing a Bishop shape instead of a Pawn shape. Ignore the hole in the Bishops head.
2. Create a Box matching the size of the hole in the Bishops head.
3. Move the Box into the Bishop, where you want the hole to be.
4. With the Bishop selected, create a Boolean. Click Pick Operand B in the Pick Boolean section, then select the Box. ( Boolean can be located under the Compound Objects dropdown menu in the Create Geometry column. )
5. Choose Subtraction (A-B) from the Operation section.

Rook

1. Follow steps 1 - 5 of the Pawn tutorial, drawing a Rook shape instead of a Pawn shape. Ignore the battlements at the top of the Rook, finishing your spline underneath them. When increasing the Segments, make sure you set them to 36.
2. Convert to an Editable Poly. ( Easily found in the Convert To menu when Right-Clicking an object. )
3. Click the Vertex button in the Selection section.
4. Select the Vertex at the top-center of the rook.
5. Holding down the Ctrl key, click the Polygon button in the Selection section. ( This will select all the Polygons that are connected to the Vertex you selected before. )
6. Click the Settings icon to the right of Inset, located in the Edit Polygons section. Set the Inset Amount to 100. Click OK.
7. Select four adjacent Polygons in the outer ring you created. ( Press F4 to turn on Edged Faces mode if necessary. )
8. Skip the next two Polygons, and select the next four. Do this all the way around the ring.
9. Click Extrude located in the Edit Polygons section. Click and drag upwards until the extrusion matches the height of the battlements. Click the Polygon button again to exit Polygon mode.
10. Apply a Smooth modifier to the Rook if necessary. Turn on Auto Smooth.

That took much longer to write out than I anticipated, especially considering I created these models months ago. The following posts will be a simple description of how I created the models, rather than a step-by-step guide.

A wooden material was applied to all three models. The Bishop and the Rook both used Tiling.