Reading other people's posts...

[bigfatMELon]

I don't agree that Max is so much better at polys. And it might not matter much if it were since you are virtually trapped in that application once you start there. The thing is damn near a production island, which is one of the keys to why it's never made it big in Hollywood.

Now, as for nurbs, the big deal is parameters. Nurb parameters easily allow for such juicy items as curves and points on surface, UVN directions, etc... The point being that what makes them great has less to do with the method itself than what can be done later in the pipe.

Of course, some of the reasons for the nurbs allegiance is also simply due to habit and old ways and even more of it due to old pipelines that might be expensive to retool.

If you want to be of "production value" then it's good to know both methods.

-jl

[neomato]

Why do you say that somebody is trapped in Max ones he starts there? Production island? You are saying that because there are no real updates in the newer versions of Max?

[Rudity]

I found polygons easier in maya. But thats just my opinion. Ive used both. Ive modled nurbs in maya and nurbs in max. and vice versa for poly's too.
And i prefered maya for both. But thats just a preference. Someone else might have done both and thought max was better. your choice.
And about your question why is nurbs used so much still is, I dunno? But my maya teacher preaches nurbs. He loves them, i prefer to model with poly's however. But he is always showing us cool tricks with nurbs. So there are advantages to both.
and like bigfatMELon stated.
USE BOTH!!!
Yup thats what im doing.

[beaker]

Alot of film studios use nurbs because they are scanning their models from sculptures. It is much easier to create an efficient nurbs model from a point cloud then a polygon one. When the scanner makes the point cloud it fills in triangles between all those points and you just have an extremely messy and thick model. The poly data is just too messy to reduce. So the modeler will then go through and create curves on the surface to create a nurbs model from it. Nurbs models are also much easier to texture becasue they have built in UV's. So your not spending hours or even days creating good high quality UV's. Just go through and do all projections.

Prman is much faster at rendering higher order surrfaces like Nurbs and Subd's then polygons. On top of that when you get to the deforming your model, a polygon one has to be extremly tesselated for you to get a nice smooth model. When you project on film and the head or hand is 60 feet across on the screen you can easily see crunches and faceting on the geometry where they deform. Subdivs come into the picture at this point and you have less to worry about because they are infinatly smooth.

[bigfatMELon]

Originally posted by Matoboy
Why do you say that somebody is trapped in Max ones he starts there? Production island? You are saying that because there are no real updates in the newer versions of Max?

No. I'm not saying that an artist who chooses to learn max or use it for themselves is in any way trapped. Rather, that Max does not play as well with other applications as the like of Maya or LW, for example. So, in a lengthy pipeline that may include several packages, apps that are open, have published file specs and easily accessible scripting languages tend to win favor. Nearly everything that Max isn't, or at least hasn't been until very recently.

This makes it an "island" in a production pipeline. You can start things there but you'll encounter trouble when trying to move them to another area. And now that the pipeline word is being applied more often to game production, we're seeing Max lose favor in that market. I know that our big reasons for switching had a lot to do with ease of customization and flexibility within our pipes.

Wait, this thread was originally about nurbs v polys. Answer: learn both and use them together, see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women. See, even Conan knew what was up.

-jl

[koinu]

AS I see it Maya is the ultimate, I've tried to work in Max and got really mad that the GUI isn't really clear at least to me. I'm getting my education in MAYA now and it rocks. Although you choose you own poision!!!! If you can learn both then your marketability will be greater! Continue trying.....
:thumbsup:

[playmesumch00ns]

BFM you're right of course, one must learn both NURBS and polys. Myself, I can't get into NURBS, tho it's probably only for lack of practice: I always end up with horrible wrinkles on my surface because I've inserted too many isoparms! Aaargh!

Right now I'm texturing a poly model and the UV editor is giving me nighmares. It makes me wish I'd learnt NURBS. My next character will definitely be NURBS for sure.

[Joojaa]

But just to get you guys right on track id say thet mirai is by far the best poly/ sudiv toolset around... but thats only my opinnion. Im basing this on my experience with the prog that is very thin, but also on comments from other users.

XSI is quite close to mirai but the owearl workflow isnt much better than that in max, lightwave or maya , in any of theese apps, which all tackle the problem a bit differently. Maya lacks some of the beutiful magnets that theese other apps boost (altough i love clay dough melscript for such tasks), but on the otherhand you can use all the animation tools for modelling and all this can be circumvented in away or another.

It all depends on what you do... but id say that good users can work quite fast on any of theese sytems, but id say that mirai and maya will get a slight upper hand on the overall workflow issue... Since im not very hip about the XSI workflow im going to try pinning it somewhere in betveen theese two on most things. But max definetly looses some points on workflow in my experience, the newest is on a way up there but still has some way to go.

I hope the new release of maya will make it better in this aspect... because i belive the retoolig of a great api into a better one can be just the move thet independet too developpers need. And maybe some of the underlying probs will be taken away.

[koinu]

NURBS,POLYS.... Your choice. Film most models run nurbs (commercials too) But don't forget the ever famous tesselation factore tha tnurbs bring to the table. Polys bring the same plate although polys render faster.... You choose you poision!!!!!
Me bring on either there are both equally good in my eyes.
Textureing on the other hand is nice when you have a nurb, polys though.....Texture maps galore.....If you wanna spend the time to texture then grab a poly mesh. But the story goes tha they both look good, if you can pull off a great model....
Peace out time to render a scene...:thumbsup:

[ambient-whisper]

there was an article on lotr recently where it disscussed that some dude from ILM went over to weta and hes looking at moving toward subdivision surfaces ( tho they have used em before but blend it into more of the current pipeline.

dont quote me on this, not my article:) maybe jason can elaborate on this a little if it isnt against his NDA.

[beaker]

>>But don't forget the ever famous tesselation factore tha tnurbs bring to the table. Polys bring the same plate although polys render faster....

Actually this is incorrect. In most apps higher order surfaces like nurbs and subd's render much faster than polygons. The renderer works much faster if it has controll the amount of polys it tesselates too. Especially with Maya(nurbs atleast), Prman, and Mental Ray. A 1 million poly scene will render 3-4x slower than a nurbs or subd model that tesselates to 1 million polys in Prman.

[beaker]

woops, double post

[Per-Anders]

if you want poly modelling then you really dont want max... or maya... they both have terribly slow workflows for this sort of work.

What you will want is either, Nendo, Wings, Mirai, Lightwave or XSI for poly modelling, all of these apps are vastly better and faster at dealing with polys and SubD modelling than Maya or Max. Of course it all depends on your budget which is why i included Wings and Nendo there. For lightwave of course you will want The Beaver Project if you're using Maya for your animation needs. And it's arguable that Rhino may be the better Nurbs modelling package than Maya. In a full film studio situation you may find all or more packages are used in the workflow, and even some real surprises... EIAS, C4D... it's all there you use what's best for not jsut the job but that particular artist... and that's the real deal... the best package is the one you feel most at home using. Download all the demos, try these things out, then buy what suits you best, what gives you the best results and the most pleasure to use... after all if it's not fun then there's not much point doing it as you're not going to add anything new if it's "just another days work".

[alexx]

to the speed:
i know some modellers in maya for which i could not really tell how an otherpackage cuold be any faster..
they have no idle times :)

i dont think that different packages can really make a BIG deal in production times.
if a modeller is 1/10 faster in a special modelling package that would be a lot for me (experienced users).
and i guess you usually spend that time gain on the conversation issue between packages then later..

i prefer havin as much done in one package as possible for bigger productions.

cheers

alexx

[Per-Anders]

well... it's the overall package workflow.

For most smaller production houses and individuals you have to make a choice to stick with one product because of expense, not only the initial cost of the packages but then you need to make a workflow around these seperate packages and that can cause bottlenecks and still more expense

As for speed... i know many modellers who use many packages who have no down time... that doesnt mean they're all producing the same ammount of work.

Maya has to my mind unecesary clicks and moves, that's not to say it's a bad package for modelling, but most people i know spend more time customising it's interface than actually doing and work in it. Of course as a modeller you may well not appreciate high speed workflow instead preferiing to take your time and explore as you model, and that's absolutely fine. Lack of down time as a measurement of the product can be percieved as a shortcoming of the product so I'd avoid using that.

The thing is each product suits each person.

If you mean in terms of speed of refresh and redraw, well, maya is ok there, nothing special, but nothing bad, it handles high density meshes pretty well, although this is just a measure of processing power really.

I love 3d, i like all the packages, Maya, XSI, C4D, Lightwave, Max, Houdini... they're all great, and also they're all flawed, they all get in the way of the process, and they're all CAD packages, nowhere near as good as a good bit of clay for organic modelling, but then again i'd hate to model a skyscraper out of clay. All of the packages have good and bad points.

What I do know in terms of speed is that i've seen people using Lightwave produce stunning models in next to no time while people in Maya i've worked with have also produced stunning models, but it's taken them rather longer... on the other hand Lightwaves character animation and dynamics seems to be nowhere near as complete as Mayas.

So all i was saying was use the package that best suits you. For yourself Maya is the one. For other people it's Lightwave or Max and others still it may be something as lowly as Strata, InfiniD or Carrara (see RustBoy).

[ryguy]

There really isn't a "Best 3d application" or "Best 3d modeling software". ALL 3d packages nowadays have the same features just different terminology. It's all about the end user's skills and abilities to utilize the software to its fullest potential.

Some claim that this program has a better interface and this program has an awful interface, etc. Again, it's all about the end user's preferences.

What I recommend is check out all the software out there and see what you like best. Alias, Discreet, Softimage, Nendo, Caligari, etc all offer demos or learning editions of their software. Check 'em out!

~Ryan

[angelman]

I have found that there is no utopia, no ideal solution.
When you use nurbs all day as I do you dream sometimes of the ease of use of poly modelling, of not having to worry about keeping patches tangential, of aligning hulls, cvs, etc. You wish you could just insert more detail but then you would have to add a whole bunch of isoparms somewhere else.. its swings and roundabout rather like making a giant puzzle.
Then when you use polys you curse them to hell as you struggle trying to sort out some ungodly mess of a uv map when texturing. All the speed you gained in poly modelling is gone as you try to get the textures working without smearing anywhere at all, especially as the surface deforms.
So then you think perhaps subd is the answer. That seems to have the benefits of both systems but then again texturing is even more of a pain!
There is no best method really I have found.
Of course if youre using the maya renderer then the added hassle of sorting out tessalation in nurbs kind of negates some of the advantages. When using renderman though nurbs or subd is the only way to go really.
my 2p worth

[aurora]

One of the things that drew me from LW to Maya was the ability to convert my NURBS to subD's. Thats a feature I REALLY like. I have the power to rapidly create my models with NURBS, convert them to subD's, add extra details and off to clean, non-broken, seamless animation land I go.

[Per-Anders]

i think we can all sit and complain about the packages we use all day long... be it maya, xsi, houdini, lightwave, max, c4d... the list is endless... in fact the only package i rarely hear anyone saying "i wish i could do <insert wish here>" is Photoshop! and even that's not perfect. Then again no artists tool has ever been anything but block on the way to true creativity, but without the difficulties imposed by our tools we probably wouldnt be half as creative.

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