New Modeler Needs Help!

[Tamtam]

hey there well i think its worth to learn
i played around with nurbspatches for one year now and after i got the alias wavefront patch modelling dvd all my problems were blown away the gnomon organic modelling videos are not so good the best way to get rid of seams are to atatch the two patches which arent tangent then detatch them again and then use global stitch maybe i should make a tutorial for that soon

[gidgit]

A tool to do a job is just that... for Organic modeling I believe ya may wish to purchase ZBrush... do up your organic models within and then export >>> there is alot to say about the power of the blob...and with ZSpheres, blobbing just got easier... :D

[Tamtam]

i dont think that there is any need to jump to another modeller maya is just fine and the cool thing with nurbs is that you can use paintefx on your models which is imposible with polys

[Dragon]

I guess it depends what your ultimate goal is.... I definately recommend learning patch modeling if you want to land a job at one of the big studios.... 90% of them are using that method. There is no doubt that thay are a pain in the buttocks, both to model in and to bind.
But if you are doing it just as a hobby and just like to create cool things...I'd opt for poly's or sub-d's just because they are easier all around. I do a lot of my personal stuff w/ poly's just because it's quicker and I like the whole instant gtatification thing.... but I sometimes have to do a lot of ppatch modeling for work... so having the knowledge is definately usefull.

[Marcel]

Are you sure about that 90% number? I was under the impression that most studios use subdivisions nowadays...

If so, why is it still so widely used, just because of the pipelines all being tailered to NURBS, or are there other important advantages? (To me the only reason to use NURBS would be the UVW mapping abilities)

[Dragon]

Maybe not 90% exactly... but I know that a lot of them do. ILM, PDI, Weta, KWCC and Blue Sky are a few that I know of. I'm not sure how many have actually adopted Sub-d's for there main modeling... Pixar and I'm not sure but I think Esc too.... but I don't know of any others.
I couldn't tell you the reason why.... maybe because, like you say, it's been embeded in their pipeline? If there's anyone reading this that could shed some light on it... please chime in :).
I do like a lot of the features in nurbs... but prefer to do my personal stuff in poly's/sub-d's just cause they cause me less headaches.

[Marcel]

I know that the cave troll has been scanned and converted to NURBS, but I also hear the myths about Mirai having done the facial morph targets (which are awsome by the way).

Yoda in EPII is also subdivisions if I am correct. Final Fantasy was certainly subdivisions.

[Aken009]

ouch dude....your mesh is pretty messy...no offense...but what you will need to do is do surface rebuild...and make sure that all your UV Spans match and line up...

and when you do a surface rebuild...of EVERY patch...use these settings...well they worked for me...

REBUILD TYPE> UNIFORM

PARAMETER RANGE> 0 to #SPANS
DIRECTION > U and V
KEEP > CORNERS
NUMBER OF SPANS...pick whatever you need...for U and V
DEGREE UandV> I used CUBIC
OUTPUT GEOMETRY> NURBS

now you can stitch your geometry...and it should close up...

but personally I use poly's and Sub'ds alot...but it's all personal preference...

good luck with this...

hope I helped out

peace
aken009

[Dragon]

>I know that the cave troll has been scanned and converted to NURBS, but I also hear the myths about Mirai having done the facial morph targets (which are awsome by the way).

Right. From my understanding they created facial shapes in Mirai and exported them into Maya to drive the nurbs mesh. Kind of like a low poly cage in effect. (oh... and I agree w/ you about the awsome part :) )

>Yoda in EPII is also subdivisions if I am correct. Final Fantasy was certainly subdivisions.

Not sure about the Yoda thing, but I could definately be wrong. I've had the the good fortune of being able to speak with some of the guys at ILM recently and they said they are pretty hardcore about nurbs.
But the point being...all of this aside... is that Nurbs Modeling still has a strong hold in the industry and it's definately worth the learn.... after all, you wouldn't want to have to turn down a job because you didn't know it.

[Aken009]

sorry...I just looked at your wireframe again...and you will need to make sure that all your patches line up...you have alot of patches that don't come close...check out this tutorial man...and take a close look at this guy's geometry...they all line up...so you might have to do some cutting and connecting to get your patches to line up with each other...along with the surface rebuild thing

Alex Alvarez has some pretty good stuff on his site too about patch modelling....

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/tesselation/


http://www.highend3d.com/maya/tutorials/patch/

[Tamtam]

looks like you went through the gnomon tutorial ok i think that better if you want to model a head even though the alias wavefront video doesnt show how to model a head
well the only thing you have to do is atatch the two patches which dont have a tangency inbetween after atatching go to rebuild surfaces option box and switch on cvs then rebuild the surface and detatch them again and finally stitch

[Tamtam]

oh i forgot in the eararea simply do a global stitch with a modification resitance of 10 this should work to get the patches together

[madmanmagic]

Thanks to all who posted a reply.

I am going back and giving it a few more attempts, with the suggested info in hand.

I just successfully finished the Socking section of the Alias Wavefront dvd on Patch Modeling. I got the patching to work exactly as Daniel S. shows on the dvd.

A few more viewings of the dvd will help as well, I think.

One follow-up which may have to be a new post is - the patchmodel I made through the socking demo is great - but when I render there are some small black seam lines here and there.

When I tumble the model unrendered it looks perfect?

I suppose there is a whole world of rendering issues once you complete a NURBS patch model?

Thanks All!
Dan

[Aken009]

well chief...you can try this....it's in maya 4
dunno about the earlier versions...

in the render section of maya....go to RENDER> SET NURBS TESSELATION> option box...and just turn up the global nurbs tesselations...this should work...

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