2-Rail Shapes

Start by opening up a new file in 3D Studio Max and viewing the options under the Modeling tab near the top of the screen. Select the NURBS Point Curve Tool which looks like: . In the Top panel, create one curved path by clicking around 4 times and then right-clicking to finalize it. Create another path the same way in the Front and Left panels.

Select the Modify tab on the right side: . Click the 2-Rail button under the Create Surfaces menu. In the Perspective panel, click on all three of the curves and then right-click. A wild 3D shape should appear.

Adjust your view of the shape to improve how it looks. To do this, use the Move and Rotate buttons: . You can zoom-in and zoom-out by using the magnifying glass near the bottom on the screen. Also, you can change the color of your shape by clicking the color swatch in the upper left corner of the Modify menu.

To give you object a nice shiny surface, go to the Material Editor by clicking: . You can apply a similar effect to that demonstrated in the Material Editor tutorial, or apply effects like I did in this example - click to see. I used the "Reflection_RefMap" material found in the Materials Library, kept most of the default settings, and changed the colors to various shades of blue.

To finally render your image, hit F10. Make sure to save your image as a PNG file to make use of the file type's ability to include an alpha channel. This will make you image appear with a nice transparent background when it is opened in Photoshop or another other image-editing software.