Modeling: A Soccer ball
The European soccer championship might be over (and England was out of the competition in the first round already, hehe (just like Germany, haha ;) )) modeling a soccer ball is more fashionable than ever. This tutorial shows You a few things about polygon modeling (MeshSmooth, working with meshes) and is meant for beginners, even though professionals might learn a trick or two as well, with regards to modeling soccer balls. The problem with soccer balls is their mix of patches: one time they're pentagons, the other hexagons. The first time I modeled a soccer ball, I was very confused. How does one get this specific geometry (pentagons, surrounded by hexagons)?? It was only by chance that I concluded that this pattern is already available in the Geosphere primitive.
With that said, create a Geosphere
by choosing "Geosphere" from Your "Standard Primitives"
group in the Create panel 
. In my example
scene, I used a radius of 90 units (choose 90 units as well, or the rest
of the tutorial won't apply to the base situation!). Your geosphere should
have 3 segments, and is of the "Icosa" "Geodesic Base Type".
That's half the soccer ball right there!
If You concentrate a little on the wireframe model, You can already
recognize the pentagon-hexagon-pattern in it. Try and see the
individual triangles in the wireframe as parts of a whole, in
that You get pentagons/hexagons. If for some reason You are still
unable to see it, the image to the left might help.
To turn this simple
base object into a soccer ball, we will still need to perform several
operations on it: Apply an Edit Mesh modifier to Your Geosphere; Make
sure Your Geosphere is selected, change to the modify panel 
and click in
the Modifiers rollout on "Edit Mesh" (it's possible that You
would need to select it under "More").
You have now applied a modifier to the Geosphere which allows You to directly edit the polygon structure, the vertices as well as the material groups (what those mean, will be explained in the next few steps).
Make sure You are
at the "Edit Mesh" level in the Modifier Stack. Under Selection
Level, You can now choose "Sub-Object" (the button turns yellow)
and select "Polygon" 
from the options
to the right of the button. MAX R3 users have a simpler way of doing this:
Just click on the Polygon button 
in the Selection
rollout. Now You can select single or multiple polygons using the selection
tool 
. Hold the Ctrl-button,
so You can add single polygons to be selected to Your currently selected
polygons (using the Alt-button, You can de-select single polygons again).
The following is best accomplished in the Perspective view: find the pentagons
in the mesh, and select polygons that belong to them (as shown in the
middle and lower images). Use the viewport Arc Rotate tool 
(lower right)
to rotate Your Perspective view around the ball. To simplify the whole
process, You can right-click the word "Perspective" in the viewport
and choose "Smooth+Highlights" as the shading option. Your ball
will then be shown in shaded mode, and the wireframe will be laid over
this shaded model. The advantage of this might not be so clear in this
simple Geosphere example, but when You start modeling Your first head,
You wouldn't want to work without it.
When You have selected all "polygon-pentagons" (as in the lower image), and You have assured Yourself that You didn't skip any, assign them a different Material-ID (MatID). Material-IDs allow You to assign multiple materials to Your object (in case You forgot: a classic soccer ball is made up out of black and white leather). MAX defaults to MatID 2 for a Geosphere's polygons. The pentagons should be assigned Material-ID 1, so You can assign a black material to these, whereas the rest of the Geosphere will be made white. To do this, open the rollout entitled "Surface Properties" in the Edit Mesh modifier, and change the Material:ID parameter to 1. All pentagons now have MatID 1, whereas all hexagons have MatID 2.
To show this effect in the viewport,
we'll create a Multi-/Sub-Object material. Open the Material Editor 
and choose "Multi-/Sub-Object"
as the material type (currently Standard, click on this button to get
the menu). Choose "Yes" when prompted. You will now have a Multi-/Sub-Object
Material. This material defaults to use for 10 MatIDs, but we only need
2. Lower the number of sub-materials in the material to 2, by clicking
on the "Set Number" button. The rest is self-explanatory.
You now have two materials, with the first one being assigned to MatID 1, and the second to MatID 2. If You now change the colors of these materials appropriately (MatID 1 black, MatID 2 white), Your ball should look like the image on the left.
Now all
the ball needs is its surface structure. This shouldn't be done
using a bump-map, but using actual geometry (for good-looking
close-up shots). Make sure that Your pentagons are still selected
in the "Polygon" sub-object mode. Don't worry in case
You inadvertently lost the selection. Go back to the "Surface
Properties" rollout in the Edit Mesh modifier and click
on the "Select By ID" button. Choose 1, and MAX selects
all polygons with MatID 1 - Your pentagons.
Make sure that You
don't exit the sub-object mode , it needs to
remain activated (yellow) for the following step; add a new modifier:
"Face Extrude".
Notice the small star in front of the modifier? It shows You
that the modifier will only apply itself to polygons selected
further down the stack (the pentagons). The rest of the sphere
will remain unaffected by it.
Increase the amount value to 2.5, and decrease the Scale value to 95%. You can watch the viewport to see how the black pentagons are pushed outwards (are extruded), and scaled down a little. In the image to the right, You can see how the polygons have been altered. The modifier created new polygons that give each pentagon a bit of a side to them.
The same thing must be done to
the hexagons. Apply another "Edit Mesh" modifier to Your geosphere,
and, again, choose "Polygon" as the Sub-Object mode . Now, using
the select tool, select one
of the (not yet extruded) hexagons. If You want to, You can select another
hexagon - but make sure You don't select two adjacent hexagons (or You
will hit problems in extruding them)! The image to the right shows what
is meant with this warning (ok, not ok).
Because we need separate patches (that should be extruded separately from each other), the selected hexagons should not be touching each other (adjacent). Otherwise they would lose their hexagon appearance after extruding.
So, You can select as many hexagons
as You wish, as long as they don't touch each other. Then make sure that
Sub-Object mode hasn't been de-activated, and apply another "Face
Extrude" modifier. Use the same values as before (Amount 2.5 / Scale
95%).
Repeat the past few steps (edit mesh, selecting hexagons, face extrude) until You have covered all hexagons. Don't worry about the modifier stack getting longer and longer as You progress; MAX should be able to handle it (although I would recommend saving the scene every now and then!).
As You can see in the image to the left, I also used multiple steps before I had all hexagons selected, extruded and scaled down. Your ball should now have the rough structure created by the sown patches, just like it is present in the real thing.
To give the ball a perfect shape, add another modifier to it : "MeshSmooth". This modifier subdivides Your "Low-Poly"-model and smooths the edges, making it all look somewhat more round. There are multiple types of "MeshSmooth", I have used the Quad Output option. This option best keeps the basic structure of the pentagons and hexagons. The rest of the values, I won't be explaining - on purpose. I admit, I have played around with the values for hours until I got an acceptable result. Changed this, modified that, until it finally worked out right. I can only say the following: the Strength of the MeshSmooth should be set to a low value, to be able to keep the edges between the patches. The rest is a subject of trial and error (You can use my final values from the example MAX file).
here's the final result (I admit, I didn't put any effort into the texture ;) )
Another soccer ball tutorial is available from Thomas Suurland. It is a bit more elaborate of a set-up.