NURBS are you really coming to the party

[ToddD]

motion_82, in answer to the question are nurbs the best way to model, in many cases, yes. Now the follow up should be, are nurbs the best way to model in max? NO! IMO, Max nurbs are frankly sub-par, they have remained unchanged for sometime now, and aren't user or computer friendly. The toolset, and functions could use a revamp. And while I don't try using nurbs in max any longer, I've read that they can cause some system instability. A realistic hand and face could be easily achieved using poly modeling, or box modeling along with meshtools and meshsmooth. I'm sure someone will come along and tell you nurbs are just fine in max, but more often than not, I've read negative reviews of them. :shrug: :)

EDIT:
In all fairness I'm going to give them another look, it's been a while. I have used nurbs when in school, took some classes in Softimage.

[Lizard Head]

From what I see and read most modeling for is turning away from NURBS and returing to Poly/ sub D modeling,

NURBS have a place, but In those cases why would you use MAX,, FOr product design and CAD use anything else hell even Rhino will work in a pinch

[xynaria]

I've been having another look at Max's Nurbs recently to try and establish if they are as bad as I ( and nearly everyone else)remembers. Pass so far..... but they really don't seem to convert to mesh as logically and predictablly as Rhino, and you do have to suffer everything being triangulated. Grrr. If they will have them then they are well overdue an upgrade. I know the world and his dog are poly mad at the moment but it was only a couple of years ago when the poly was almost declared moribund and Nurbs were the place to be. Like all fads this is to overemphasise the virtues and limitations of each over the other. Both are extremely useful in often different circumstances and it might be an idea for them to be interchangable which Maya seems to have figured out so perhaps Max will eventually. :)

[motion_82]

thank you all for the imput so far

i have been doing some research of my own since my first post and have made some interesting discoveries.

It seems to be that you are all right in saying that NURBS is not the best way to model in 3D Studio Max.

It does seem that most people these days are using Surface Tools to model. The reason being that dating back a few years ago computers where not able to cope with the amount of polygons we see on our screen today, meaning that NURBS back a few years ago where the best way for our computers to handle the modeling pressure. Therefore today with faster computers being able to handle more a more dense mesh we are fortunate to have the easablility of a stable polygon set up allowing us to model easier with Surface Tools.

I believe from this forum I have discovered that Surface Tools are the most common and best technique to use in my scenario.

Thanks to everyone for their time. I hope that everyone has benefited from this forum.

________________________________________________

"There are millions of realities, but most of all YOURS"

[tascitus]

ive wondered why max after all these years has yet to gain truly functional nurbs tooset. i learned basic nurbs modeling with rhino, and have pretty much moved to maya full time. if you loko at maya and rhino, you'll notice the pretty similar in many areas and that they are both pretty different from max. this reminds me of max's layers panel which is also kinda skewed from the more traditional layers interface.

[Dr-spline]

I only use nurbs for things like car design and other rounded non-organic things.

[Lizard Head]

ditto

[Iain McFadzen]

I work with a guy who models exclusively in Rhino nurbs, but he doesn't try and import into Max as Nurbs (since Max's nurbs are incredibly slow/bad). Instead he exports a low-poly mesh approximation of whatever he built, then adds a meshsmooth once inside Max. He gets his prefered nurbs modeling workflow and still ends up with a nice max-freindly mesh at the end of it.

[Dr-spline]

yea ive heard rhino nurbs are the best, can someone enlighten me on how they are better than max's

[xynaria]

They are very stable, quick, are very logical in their conversion to mesh, and they have a huge toolset that works.. They also provide really exemplary tutorials in their training pdf's.. The only thing that Max has over Rhino is that Max's nurbs are relational whereas at this time at least Rhino's are not which means that if you perform say a blend surface or a revolve (lathe in Max) you cannot adjust the Nurbs curve and have the action updated.. you would have to delete the original action (blend or lather) and repeat it after the edit. :)

[AJ]

Rhino is your friend! :D

I miss Rhino... :cry:

[Dr-spline]

sounds good, i used to use nurbs for characters but it washard to work with afteryou had the origonal shape. for a while i did nurbs2polymodeling

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