Ikea-style Instructions

Step 3 Cut up model and capture

In your modelling software, create a series of "slice planes" to cut up the model into the various parts you want, and create cameras to view the model from the angles you need for the manual. In my case, this required 16 planes and 2 cameras.

Now, by turning the slice planes on or off, you can isolate the pieces of the model and render images.

If necessary, open the images in Photoshop and adjust contrast and brightness settings until you have something that looks decent. Remember, it's supposed to look like an Ikea line-drawing in the end.

It's possible that by using something like the Illustrate plugin for 3dsmax, you could make a more convincing line-drawing, but I wasn't able to get it to work. Instead, I just turned the contrast all the way up and the brightness down a bit in each image; I was satisfied with the end result.

For help with 3dsmax and other modelling software, check out this website, with lots of helpful tips and video tutorials: http://designreform.net/