Smoothing in Maya

Tulkamir

Hey, I'm having some problems with smoothing in Maya. I'm used to modeling in Max, and in it doing high poly stuff I'd just use the subdivision surface to smooth my models, and in it I had no problems creasing edges and such. I can't figure out how to do this in Maya though, Smooth Proxy seems to be what I want, but I can't figure out how to properly crease edges with it, or cancel it to go back to the simple version if needed.

Can anyone help me out with this?

Thanks.

[edit]Also, is there a way to extrude polygons along a preset curve or path in Maya? I had thought there was, but can't seem to find it. Also, is there a way to select subobjects in Maya? In Max I could switch between the vert/face/edge etc... modes and objects was included, however I can't figure out an easy way to do the same in Maya. (For example, say I have a cylinder and a sphere, and combine the objects, how can I select just the sphere or just the cylinder? Thanks again[/edit]

malcolm

1. sounds like if you want a crease button you should be using sub-d in Maya, if you are refering to just getting hard edges with smooth proxy, just cut some more edges into the model, if you are going with smooth proxy I highly recommend the CPS tool which is a free download, just google it, the built is smooth proxy in Maya is junk in my opinion.

2. extrude polygons along a path, draw a curve, select a polygon face and the curve then go to extrude face. Not as robust as max but I don't find myself needing to do this any more? You can also extrude a nurbs surface and convert to polygons which gives much better results and gives you nice uv's automatically.

3. select some verts and hold down Ctrl + right mouse button that will bring up a menu to switch between the different component types, if you want to select segmented meshes that have been combined, select one or more components of that mesh and expand the selection until it is all select shortcut is Shift + > alternatively you can select a uv and then go into the texture view and use select shell, then convert your selection to what ever component you want.

4. I highly recommend the F1 help in Maya it is great and that is how I learned to use the program, it's got a nice follow along tutorial layout, Maya basics and polygon modeling are great for getting up to speed in the package.

MoP

Yeah, for point 3) I usually bind Alt-S to "Select UV Shell", since that essentially selects the element... just select a vert, edge or face and hit your chosen shortcut key, instant shell select without going into the UV Texture editor.

Tulkamir

Excellent, thanks for the help guys.

And yea, the smooth proxy doesn't seem great, I'll deffinatly check out the CPS tool, thanks.

And I need to make some wires, easiest way to make a wire along a curved path should be extrude along path. Sucks to hear it's not quite a good as Max's, but oh well, I rarely use it anyways. Thanks yet again.

And the uv shell idea is great, hadn't even thought of that. Though I still would think it should be a built in thing. Ahh well. THanks guys, very helpful.

And Malcolm, I use the help quite frequently, however, neither me or the other person I work with could find any of the above information. But you are deffinatly right, Maya does have a very useful help that comes with it.

Anyways, thanks very much for all the help.