Ok, here we go with our first 3d tutorial, with what I think is one the most powerful weapons in a 3d modellers toolbox; especially for adding much needed detail, as most 3d models are too bland and dont look good close up. First of all fire up your trusty 3ds max and create a box (fig 1a).
Ok, now we need to make our splines that we want to shapemerge onto our nice shiny box. So, now in the top view, go to the shapes tab in fig 1b and create 4 rectangles like in fig 2a.
Looking good so far. Now select one of the rectangles you just created. Right click and select convert to edible spline option. Then scroll down till you come to geometry and select attach mult like in fig 2b. Now when the attach mult box comes up, select your other 3 rectangles that you made. This will make them all one object.
Now the important part: we have to select the object consisting of the 4 splines and move them above the side that we want shapemerged. Do this in your front viewport and move them up (fig 3a)
Doing good so far I hope. All we have to do now is select your original box and under compounds tab select the shapemerge button. It should look like my fig 3b. Now under your rollout on the right side, you will see a button that says pick shape. Click it and click the 4 rectangles that should be over your box.
All you have to do is select your box and right click - convert to edible mesh, and choose polygon (fig 4a). Now all you do is scroll down further and select extrude(fig 4b), and when you increase the value only the shapes that you want will extrude(fig 5a). There now you know how to add controllable detail to your model.
