Nurbs and Curves
hey,
I know for a fact that using nurbs and sub -D surfaces is a very underrated skill because I know a lot of people dont know how to use them very well.
I for one have some experience in using them, because I forced myself to delve into that subject.
but I want to know more about them and wondered if somebody could point me in the the right direction on learning more about Nurbs, many thanks:)
I am sure there are others out there like me who would like to know as well :thumbup:
btw the Maya 2012 documentation is very dry for subjects like these
I know for a fact that using nurbs and sub -D surfaces is a very underrated skill because I know a lot of people dont know how to use them very well.
I for one have some experience in using them, because I forced myself to delve into that subject.
but I want to know more about them and wondered if somebody could point me in the the right direction on learning more about Nurbs, many thanks:)
I am sure there are others out there like me who would like to know as well :thumbup:
btw the Maya 2012 documentation is very dry for subjects like these
Replies
[ame="
It's from this thread http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=108026
Just look at the wireframe.
Nurbs are really just going to slow you down and cause more issues.
There are many many shapes that are a pain to poly sub d out, and take a fraction time with curves/nurbs.
USE BOTH, don't think it's one or the other.
I personally don't like them very much, but iirc it was an interesting thing to try out.
Regarding nurbs : I got a little bit into them last year with Max and there are some very cool tools in there. Definitely worth checking out.
I understand that it can be a lot faster to make more flowing, organic meshes with Subd, but when you are modeling mechanical, manufactured parts for things like guns, I find that it can be faster working with the same software that was probably originally used to make the parts in the first place. (Also, I hear T-Splines may be of interest for the more flowing organic stuff) Not for everything, mind you, but it certainly would be awesome to mix and match for some things, no?
Plus, NURBs Fillets, blending shapes with perfect continuities, parametric/non-destructive workflows, and most importantly, not having to worry about topology so much are all awesome things.
I hear that Max's NURBs tools are lacking. I wonder, is it possible to use something like Autodesk Inventer Fusion and then import them into something like Max as a High-res meshes from which you can bake normals? What about from Max NURBs? I have tried converting the surfaces to polies a couple times, but I haven't ever gotten it to come out right. I am just getting into this type of software now.
Ok. I will have to look into that some more. Do you think the faint edges will really matter since everything will still bake down to an 8 bit normals map for the foreseable future anyway?
Do you ever use this workflow or do you find it to not be worth the trouble?
The workflow I use is get a nice strong base mesh via nurbs, covert to poly and continue with poly edits and subdivision from there.
Can you give some examples and describe your workflow? Any software recommendations? Where would I start if I wanted to learn to use NURBs effectively?
But in my experience converting it to triangles for our uses always introduce some kind of approximation, and while the results are always very smooth inside a given UV surface, there tends to be very faint mismatches where surfaces meet (for instance, one surface edge might be converted to 16 polygon edges but the edge on the other side of it might be converted to 24 ...)
The workflow consisting of combining NURBS components together is very interesting, especially since in the most high-end programs it is non-destructive. So basically one can trim surfaces and move the operands later for edits. However it is all quite stiff to model intricate things with and at the end of the day I think that subdivided polygons are more efficient - especially since they likely bake better.
I would say that when it comes to game asset production, NURBS can be great for rough mechanical blockouts as well as for some specific architectural modeling. I don't think that trying to make a full highpoly, bakable prop in NURBS would be of any use, tho
TDub : sounds like a great workflow, would you mind posting some example assets ?
As for apps to start with :
Max has great non-destructive NURBS tools.
MOI is a whole lot more intuitive to use since it is completely dedicated to NURBS.
But afaik MOI doesn't allow for non linear operands manipulation tho.
Workflow varies a lot for the subject. My most common one starts with drawing out some nice curves that mach the profile of a specific piece.
Next I'll usually Loft (sometimes for more involved sections you may need to duplicate along a curve, on a seperate profile.) In the end you end up with a NURBSs mesh. This mesh can be manipulated with your curves at this point. make sure everything is clean and proper.
Once you are happy, convert 'NURBs to Poly'. Maya has some nice conversion options. They can help depending on what you are looking for.
Lastly just start poly modeling off of this mesh. If you subdivide off of a straight conversion it will match the NURBs.
Vimeo has a bunch of nice Maya tuts on it.
And here is a simple conversion explanation. [ame="
Forgot to mention off of piors post. If you stay under a tight restriction of matching total curve points with other curves you won't run into as many merging issues since that will loft correctly into eachother.
Exmpl- Don't try to loft a 24 points into an 5 point curve and expect things to look pretty when converted.
In general, I only use this workflow for small patches and block out shapes, then convert to polygons and start adding details and edge loops.
The more usefull aspects I associate with Nurbs is the ability to boolean solids and project various curves unto surfaces and have the ability to do things like fillet/chamfer any old edge and be able to controll the radius/parameters of these operation at any point along the curves and with various contiuity options all without having to worry whether your smooth flowing curve has enough topology to maintain/support your angular hard surface feature's . These are the kind of things that are difficult in Subd, and I am rather interested in examples of those being put to use in game art workflows, if you guys have them.
Might be interesting to start a google hangout / research day to check it out further.
On every other site I've been on for this exact topic, they conclude the same thoughts.