Subdivision Surfaces

[sam]

There's spline modeling (Lathe, Loft, Extrude Spline, Extrude along Path)

There's Low Poly modeling which should be distinguished from general Poly modeling.

There's Metaball modeling (Organica, Metareyes)

There's "Sculpting" modeling (Maya's artisan, Zbrush)

There's Boolean modeling.

Those are what come to me off the top of my head.

Considering the advent of the new normal mapping technology and the new displacement technology, some of the above techniques that have been previously dismissed as producing far too heavy geometry may come back into much increased favor.

Imagine sculpting a heavy piece of geometry in something like Zbrush and then baking it onto a displacement map to be mapped on top of a nice lean subdivisional surface.

[Northchild]

I'm curious - I had heard of a program called Amorphium. Does this fall under "Sculpting" modeling?

[sam]

indeed it does

[BrandonD]

Polygon subdivision-based modeling is still rendering as polygons. It's often mistaken for subdivision surfaces. That technology is purely a rendering function. It's a surface technology the same way polygons are, however they are infinitely detailed. Few renderers support them.

[Ian Jones]

heh, more clarification needed... Seems I get the terms confused aswell. Where can I learn, or read a dictionary of cg terms?

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