I am trying to figure out the best way to model this:
it has top and side rails that bow in the center. When I tried free form box modeling I got very goofy results. I am trying it now with patch modeling. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
looks definately like a job for nurbs (not max’s built in ones tho 
) otherwise i dont see why not polymodel it to be honest.
Regards,
Thorsten
Poly modeling should do it.
Yeah apparently I suck at that. I thought it would be rather cut and dry but my curves looked really lame. Thats probably it I am lame - but I haven’t been banging my head against this model for long enough because my head doesn’t hurt… yet.
What I normally do for this type of thing is model it flat with a really nice layout of polygons spaced as evenly as possible and then use ffds to introduce the curved aspect to the object - I found trying to add edges to a curved surface and still keep away wrinkles was quite tough. I’d definitely second nurbs or power nurbs.
I actually got a model I was ok with. I started with a plane and selected faces and used the FFD mod where ever I needed and it worked great.
Thanks