For this tutorial I assume that you have the basic knowledge of the 3D Studio MAX surface. For this tutorial no plugins are required! I have created the scene with 3D Studio MAX 3.1 but I guess that it works exactly the same way with MAX 2.0 because no special MAX 3 features are used.
1) Start MAX and reset it! 2) Create a cone with the following figures in the top-view: radius1 = 30 radius2 = 40 height = 50 3) Go to the left-view and highlight the cone (segment of the trunk of the palm tree). Click on the button and create 20 segments in the y-axis with a value of 45.