Easiest way to model a robot?

[substyle]

Ok,

I just start using nurbspatches (for i´m really nuts but dammn fast in using nurbs ;-) ) for the organic parts and polys to do all "hard" and recktangle shapes.
Maybe using the connectPolyShape tools might help you if you´re more used to model in polys.

subSTYLE

[stunndman]

for what i've done so far i feel most comfortable with nurbs for geometric objects (hard surfaces)

to have properly parameterized nurbs patches i try to have a workflow that does always rely on curves i extract from previous surfaces

here's something i found useful regarding nurbs modeling - http://3drender.com/sunday/Regular.htm

i was curious whether people do nurbs 'til the end or whether at a certain stage convert to poly for the real small details

[svenip]

i do this conversion from nurbs to poly only then modeling a character and wanna use subds.

in general you can't really say this or this one is the best modeling aproach for a robot. but i guess nurbs is a good way to do this. even the smalest details can be done by nurbs. just you have to work very clean. that's an advantage of poly-subd aproach. you don't need to plan your work in advance like you have to do this with nurbs.

but nurbs are much cleaner and nice models at the end :)

[stunndman]

Originally posted by svenip
even the smalest details can be done by nurbs

are you using trims a lot? is it safe to use trims a lot to add detail?

i'm a bit uncertain about trims

[svenip]

no :) trims are evil. every trimmed surface can also be build by patches. so it's hard to learn this puzzle game but once you have it you can model everything and without any trimm.

--==edit==--

ahh just forgot. trims are evil in MAYA. StudioTools have much nicer trims which can be really used.

[stunndman]

ok - thanks for the insight - what exactly makes a trim in maya evil - modeling, rendering or just when it's used as a skin for a character ?

[svenip]

modeling is no pain. it's the RENDERING. i know a lot of people who get scared when they get a trimmed surface for rendering :)

the edges are very hard to hide in rendering.

skinning is also an issue, because no stitching for trims.

a simple rule may be "what does not look clean in modeling view is hard to render out clean".

[stunndman]

thx again for the insights

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