Some artwork (3d car: Pagani Zonda)

[Matt Hallock]

Originally posted by Lev
Well - the beautiful part of NURBS is that the actual hull is hidden from the user most of the time - you can just work with the curves, and can build a whole detailed surface without even touching the actual surface CVs.

What i meant by creating extra geometry just to define curvature is following:

Suppose you want to create a fillet along an edge in your surface. In Polys, you would have to chamfer it, and then tweak the chamfer amount ,and maybe even the generated verticies to adjust the curvature of the fillet. In NURBS (in theory - it almost never works the way its supposed to in max) you'd just create a fillet surface with a specified radius - and wont have to worry about tweaking the CVs, because the software would do it for you and hide the CVs themselves

And about controlling the meshsmooth - if you are referring to adjusting the edge/vertex weights for NURMS, it is the most awkward way of controlling curvature of your model, because the weights are affecting the whole surface, and all of your model will get distorted by setting weight value too high (for example, if you'd like to make a sharp edge) The results from chamfering the edge are much more predictable.

The results of the meshsmooth are as well predictable when used properly. As long as the base model has enough vertices you can easily stop distortion.

[Lev]

As long as the base model has enough vertices you can easily stop distortion.

Exactly! But why would i want to add extra geometry just to prevent distortion? Am i defining shape by adding the extra verticies? No. Am i refining the surface detail with them? No. I have to add them just to help meshsmooth algortihm to produce predictable results.

[Matt Hallock]

Originally posted by Lev
Exactly! But why would i want to add extra geometry just to prevent distortion? Am i defining shape by adding the extra verticies? No. Am i refining the surface detail with them? No. I have to add them just to help meshsmooth algortihm to produce predictable results.

Meh, I see your point. However, NURBS has some unpredictable outcomes when you use rail sweeps.

[stevek]

Hey guys, I fully understand most of what your are saying. I personally dont use alot of Nurb Modeling- mainly because I havent spent any real time with it. So I dont know the best techniques there. (I do mostly Poygon or Spline/Mesh Modeling)

However- I'd love for a couple of you to throw together a few simple tutorials that discuss each technique and either post them here (maybe in its onw thread) or post them on a website (I will host if you need) so that some of the newer students can get a handle on what each modeling method does and why and when you may want to use one or another. Maybe you can each pick and object and show 2 or 3 different approaches. Or you each pick a different approach and you all create a similar object.

Any Takers?