I''m a new user to 3D Studio Max 5. Like so many I want to begin my 3D escapades with creating a landscape and then moving around the world in real time. The tools I''ve chosen (for now) include: Vue d''Esprit (and to a lesser extent Animatek World Builder) for landscape generation, Virtools Dev for realtime visualization/gameplay, and 3D Studio Max for everything else. After having generated a 3D landscape I would like to view it in Virtools but a single mesh as this could be a nightmare for the graphics card processor so I wanted to break up the mesh into smaller patches. This way I can apply the progressive mesh option to each 3D model having the patches that are farther way from view reduced in polys. I still dont know how I''m going to get around the cracking issue but that''ll be saved for later. My question is how do I go about dividing up my 3D landscape model into equal sized patches within 3DSMax. So, if I wanted to divide the single mesh into 4x4 chunks and then "save" each mesh out as a separate model how do I do this? Thanks.

I have not used max 5 yet but am familiar to all the previous versions. So this answer will be based on max 4.

1. Select your model.
2. Goto the modify tab (on the right hand right panel)
3. right click on the modify stack and covert your mesh to and editable mesh
4. You will have to make copies of your mesh. To do this hold shift and click on the mesh. It should bring up a popup and ask name, instance, copy and reference. You want a copy.
5. on the modify tab. Click on the drop down menu. Goto the modifier called "slice".
6. You will be able to move and rotate this slice plane so its in the position you want. Use the option on the modify tab remove tp or bottom.

You can halve you mesh like this. Then add another slice plane. if the second slice plane does not work then convery your sliced model to an editable mesh again then add the new slice plane.

I told you to make a copy of your mesh so you can do the other 3 quarter. So effectivly in the end you should mave 4 separate meshes.