I've been experimenting using 3DSMax to create bitmaps for gauges and their components. It may seem like using a slewdge-hammer to crack a nut but, as someone short on artistic/drawing ability, I've found it very helpful.I simple build the bezel, switch, lever, etc, and add a material. I light it using an omni light directly over it, with another omni light roughly to the north west to get the oblique lighting effect. I render the appropriate view, possibly adjusting the material and lights until I get a satisfactory effect. I have R3 which renders to a jpg only, so I then use Photoshop to make any final tweaks and save as a bitmap.The following image was built up from a box, cylinder, torus, and geospheres for the brass attachements, and two omni lights. It took about 10 min.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/141830.jpg

Shhhh!Stop giving away secrets!

Isn't that how everybody does it? It would be the way I would do it if I could draw anything better than a stick figure :-)

I'm slow off the mark - it's my age :(

>I'm slow off the mark - it's my age :(That's very nice work though. It's amazing how quickly you can build up 3d parts, add some texture and lighting....Setting up the 'photo studio' takes the longest time, but if you save your "photo studio" as a .max file, building the next part is even quicker... ;)

After rendering with 3D Max, do not use its jpg function. For some reason that program saves its rendered drawing with less than desirable quality. You spend all that time boolean holes and applying textures and moving lights about to set the tone of the image only to have a jpg mess it all up. Instead, download a freebie called ScreenHunter 4.0 (my version anyway). It sits in the tray awaiting an F6 keypress which activates it. You can set the program to copy the bitmap data inside any rectangle which you draw around an image, in your case, the rendered gauge. That places the Max bitmap intact and undistorted on the clipboard ready to paste in Photoshop. My advice is to stay away from jpgs as much as possible, although not always easy to do. Glenn

That's helpful. I have R3 which gives me no choice - it's a jpg or nothing!

Must be nice to have a spare $4k lying around to purchase 3DSMax.

>That's helpful. I have R3 which gives me no choice - it's a>jpg or nothing!Max8 give me many, many formats from which to choose, including .bmp, .psd, .jpg, .gif, .tga, etc.

>Must be nice to have a spare $4k lying around to purchase>3DSMax.My thoughts for sure! :-lol I used a spreadsheet to calculate the start and end points for all the tick marks. Used Paint Shop Pro to actually draw them. This process is a little tedious to be sure, but given that you know, to the pixel, where the lines have to go, it's not quite as bad as it might seem.Doug

Well, why not simply draw the scale in GDI+ and then take a screenshot! ;)

Most of us would never own 3D Max if it wasn

As a Gmax kind of guy I read this with interest, and did a quick experiment to see if this was workable. I made a rim for a gauge, added some lighting, and then made a screen capture(shift+print screen), which I pasted into PSP and edited into an existing gauge I created a while back. Did it work?I have some gauges to update...:-) Robert

>But, don

Let me show an example of what I meant by "obeying the laws of 3D".http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/142355.gifThis is a 3D simulation of round, interlocking rings created in XaraX. Each ring is flat as evidenced by the cast shadows on the white background.3D Max cannot build this scene as shown because it is a three-demension program and coded to obey the rules of objects in the real world. Even if you can interlock the rings as shown using Max, they would not lie flat. And if you make them lie flat, they would not appear as shown here. The limitation of working in 3D lies in the building of objects, not in their rendering. In XaraX, you build objects as they will appear in their final form. Rendering is not necessary.Glenn