NURBS tools info request

[Taoizm]

Other than the tutorials that come with MAX you're not likely to find many if any. (consult the tutorial thread)

MAX nurbs are just plain bad, and most users gave up on them about 10 minutes after they were added to MAXr2. You're better off box modelling, or spline modelling.

[visualasylum]

Well I would have to agree with you that MAX nurbs is not as good with nurbs in Rhino or MAYA, but they arent' that bad.

Been using it a while now for some stuff that would be hard for polygon modeling.

Can't go in detail now, but I'll be gladly to put a challenge for whoever that thinks they can prove me wrong.

Just think of engineering Bridges and overpasses. think about it.

cheers,

Greg

[googlo]

MAX nurbs are just plain bad, and most users gave up on them about 10 minutes after they were added to MAXr2. You're better off box modelling, or spline modelling.

And that's why most people don't know that Max NURBS were significantly improved sense Max 2. That's insanely ignorant to say that Max NURBS are bad because of their experience with them in Max 2.

There are some things that are just much easier and MUCH faster to do using NURBS as opposed to the other methods of modelling in Max. They aren't as refined as other packages that have focused on NURBS for modelling. I just think it's asinide if people are judging Max' NURBS capability based on it's implimentation in Max 2. If that's the case, they should just give up on Max because based on 2.0, everything sucks compared to modern times...

Visualasylum,

What I did to learn NURBS in Max was just look at tutorials for other programs like Maya with NURBS modelling and translated as I went.

[Taoizm]

Originally posted by googlo
And that's why most people don't know that Max NURBS were significantly improved sense Max 2. That's insanely ignorant to say that Max NURBS are bad because of their experience with them in Max 2.


You're right. I was turned off by them in MAX2 and really never looked back. I'll admit my remark was biased. I guess I should go and reevaluate them. I got locked into the "max nurbs=evil" frame of mind.

cheers :)

[googlo]

Taoizm,

Yeah, I'm not trying to be mean, it's just I get angry when I hear someone give advice like that because when I first started, I wanted to learn what NURBS (academcially speaking) was all about using Max, but most people told me to not even try with Max. So I didn't look at them in Max for almost year after I started to learn 3dCGI because I was going on the advice of others that were more experienced.
I'm not saying that Max NURBS are the best, it's just after all that time I decided to check them out anyway and used a Maya tutorial on NURBS modelling for learning NURBS in Max, and for at least what that tutorial had covered (doing a head of an alien creature like in the movie "Aliens"), everything was the same (Maya definitely has more refinements than Max though), I just had to translate between packages of what things meant, but NURBS basics are the same. So I felt a little betrayed by people I had listened to in Max and cgi forums in general about the subject.
After learning a little history about Max and NURBS I know that in it's first implimentation they were really bad and I think that turned a lot of people off but it gets me flustered when I hear people say Max Nurbs suck when they honestly probably have never used them (not you specifically, just generally speaking) in the first place.

Here are the examples I did with Max NURBS then, in Max 4.0 using the maya tutorial (I used creative freedom and did some other stuff beyond the tutorial for some parts, but it got me understanding how things were done).

Aliean Head 1 (http://pweb.jps.net/~bonavera/Ahead3.jpg)

Aliean Head 2 (http://pweb.jps.net/~bonavera/Ahead4.jpg)

Aliean Head 3 (http://pweb.jps.net/~bonavera/Ahead5.jpg)

And here is the Maya tutorial I was working from.

http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/type/tutorial.asp?id=22927

There are seams in the mesh because I wasn't finished with parts of the model yet and so hadn't merged the symmetrical copy of it together yet. I stopped because I felt like I had done enough to get the basics of what NURBS modelling was all about :). It was fun though!

[visualasylum]

VERY NICE!!

yes I agreee with you, many people after seeing the poor nurbs in version 2, got discouraged.

The great thing I like about nurbs is that you can make changes to some things way easier than other methods.

However they tend to take longer to render....but who cares...

cheers,

Greg

[ToddD]

I think the fact that you can't find many max NURBS tutorials says alot about the acceptance among the max community. It seems to me that while max nurbs may have been improved, they are still sub-par. The toolset seems incomplete, there were stability issues, maybe they've been improved, but I never see a maxxer touting the use nurbs. I agree using nurbs for creating a bridge things like that is a logical effective method, but as far as using it for my primary toolset, not till it is vastly improved to the quality of Rhino, or Softimage & Maya. :shrug: :)

[visualasylum]

to tell you the truth, the only main thing that max lacks big time is accuracy like in rhino. Rhino has some nurb tools that are very accurate. for instance, if you project an outline to a surface, this is where things gets out of hand. there's many other areas too, but I won't go in detail.

I believe nurbs in MAX are very good now, however I have not gone deep in the new tools yet. But can't wait.

cheers,

greg

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