Problem with car tutorial

[Hiigara]

i am currently taking the tutorial here - http://www.3dm-mc.com/tutorials/car/ and i have my spline network set up and completely checked for holes, but when i apply the surface modifyer it doesn't create patches on the outside of the car. it looks like my spline network completely disapears and my car is gone, until i rotate the camera and notice that it did apply the patches, but it applied them inside the car. i mean, before i mirror the half of the car, when i do a test render from the front view (side of the car) i see nothing, when i should be seeing the half of the car from the side. and when i do a test render of the back view (looking into the car from the half not yet created) i see the patches, but they are on the inner part of the car, not the outer. anybody know a possible solution to my problem?

[Pedro]

First thing to do, check that all your vertices form 3 or 4 sided shapes and they are fused together. The problem you describe comes about when there is a break in the surface and the normals are reversed, making it appear as if the patch has been applied inside the splinecage. The splinecage does disappear when you apply the surface.

To check your patches are applied you can also reverse the normals on the surface modifier rollout. If there are no breaks in your mesh you can go on from here.

[Hiigara]

thx! i got it fixed now, but now i have another question. is it possible to add splines to the spline network after you have already applied the surface modifyer? i tried snapping splines to some of the patch vertices, but the spline lines didn't match up too well with the edge of the patches, leaving small slits in the model.

[Pedro]

Somebody may come along and correct me on this, but I am fairly certain that once you have applied the surface modifier to the splinecage, thats it, you can't add any more splines. Effectively the spline cage doesn't exist anymore, it becomes the surface patch.

If you notice areas of the patches are leaving gaps it means that the splines haven't been fused together. So go back and add more vertices or add new splines to the splinecage, then reapply the surface.

[Sir_Vulcan]

you should put a picture of some of your work in the gallery forum.

[Hiigara]

yes i am going to submit some stuff when i get some stuff done. im still pretty new to modeling, especially 3ds max, and even though i think i am catching on to things very quickly, im still kinda learning as i go so ive started parts of cars and things as "scratch" work but now that i think im set ive started an Audi TT today and ill just wait and see how it turns out :p. ill submit some of my work to the gallery, but i don't have much to submit yet ;)

im gettin there tho!

[Sandu Ionut]

you gotta keep tryin'!! i'm on the verge of a creation myself- a Lancia Delta Integrale Evoluzione-- unfortunately, i don't have a modem, but i'll find a way to post it.. This is the first thing( after the hovercraft) i've done in 3ds max so it won't be too marvellous, but...

[Pavel Lazarov]

I have made the body of that Lancia while ago from a tutorial. Spline modelling is cool but i preffer poly modelling. I am a begginer too so its not so beautiful. I have made a fiat 500 from a tutorial too(really cool tutorial). I have learned a lot. There is a picture of it in the Work in Progress 3D&2D.

so the picture of the lancia:

[Nisse]

The first problem is that the verkex won't snap on each other. The other problem is i can't find "Surface modifier".
Where is it?
I got d3s m 2.

[Pedro]

Unfortunately, Surface didn't arrive in max until 3 I think.