Poly first or Nurbs?

[gmask]

The renderer cannot smooth out polys.. you ahve to covnert to eithe rSuib-d's or use the smooth funtion.

The poly tools are getting better maya but there are definately some good reasons to leanr nurbs. For one it will teach you the discipline of tangencies and topology... which you have to know in order to use them coorectly. You can make a total mess of a poly model with keeping these things in mind. with nurbs though you ahve th option of rebuildign surfaces and you can only make four sided surfaces unlike polys which let you go "ngon" crazy.

I say learn how to use the nurbs tools but with the idea that you will finish your model as poly cage converted to either a smooth proxy or sub-d.

[DeathBrain]

I agreed with Gmask

Nurbs is great for organical model, soft objects surfaces, has great surfaces tools ie birail tools, fillet, rebuild surfaces, etc, and the great things about nurbs is you could convert it to polys/sub-D later
If you want to use Maya, then Nurbs its a must :)

Polys are great too, but for faceted modeling objects, like game, structural construction, i uses poly for some reason, i must copy the objects hundred times (maybe more) :sad: thats why i uses low polys for construction. Of course we could smooth it by using smooth poly but then it exploded into a superb heavy model/faces :scream:

Wacom_Knight, here's your learning schedule :

Monday - Thursday : Nurbs
Friday - Saturday : Poly

:beer:

[zzacmann]

Im going to half to go against the others and say to learn polygons first. You need to know Nurbs, but starting off with polys would be best.

At school, my very first modeling assignment was modeling a nurbs patch head. I didnt even know my way around the Maya interface yet and I was modeling probably the most difficult thing to model using the most difficult technique.

Needless to say, it didnt go very well.

So I stayed away from Nurbs modeling for about a year and did nothing but polys, and when I felt comfortable modeling anything in polys, I went back to Nurbs.

My second Nurbs model was a human head and I found it much, much easier to comprehend and manipulate the geometry now that I understood how to model in polys.

Plus, knowing polys first will make it easier to go to Sub-D's as well.

Also, many big studios model in Nurbs, but their proprietary Nurb modeling tools are much different than those used by off-the-shelf Maya. In fact they are more forgiving and functional. So dont feel like all is lost if you cant get four patch corners to meet up correctly without a seam.

[gmask]

>>I didnt even know my way around the Maya interface yet and I was modeling probably the most difficult thing to model using the most difficult technique.

Needless to say, if you don'tt know the program very well either method will probably be confusing ;-)

[VShane]

Thanks for all the advice peoples.
What I gather so far is that it appears that Poly is rather straight forward, and that Nurbs has many variables to consider, and that Polys CAN be taken to a more complex level, but is inherently simple and more user freindly than Nurbs for beginners?

Am I understanding this correctly. I work full time freelance from home at night/AM (during the day I home school my daughter), so i ahve to be laser like focus on the time I spend learning each week and have to go with the flow on hours (very few right now) but I want to at least eeek along. Something. If you had about 3-4 hours learning time available each week, then you would recommend Polys?

[gmask]

>>> If you had about 3-4 hours learning time available each week, then you would recommend Polys?

I guess it depends on what kind of learning materials you have .. you may want to avoid the trial error approach to learning no matter which way you go.

[NueFoX]

I think learning Poly is better. You can work with hard surfaces, convert it to Sub-D.
And learning Nurbs would be easier !
That's what i did.

[Marcel]

I can only speak from my own experience and perspective, but I would definitely go for polygons/subdivisions.
I've used 3ds Max for a few years, which has a real crappy NURBS implementation, so I never learned to properly work with Nurbs. I can't say I've missed them though, not for mechanical modelling nor organic stuff.

Nurbs are getting used less and less, and for good reasons in my humble opinion :)

[Kinjiru]

ok ok, a really stupid question:

If you use poly, theres a poly count menu that you can see, but when it comes to nurbs, where's the equivelent to the poly counter?

[Kabab]

With nurbs how many triangles it gets divided up into at render time is setup under the tessalation tab in the AA for that surface.

[MSB]

In my opinion
Starting with poly will be better coz the tools is much powerful that what I fillet in my expireance but you have to learn alittle about Nurbs its really useful

Sorry for my bad english:)

[VShane]

I'm convinced! Polys it is, matter of fact, I do airbrushing on the side so I'll create a T-shirt (original huh?) that has a Polygons all over it, and it will say:

"CG Talk-ed me into it!"

"Yes to Poly Modelling, down with Poly-Ester!"

Thanks guys!

Now to make the time:thumbsup:

[Goon]

I'm a little late here. Darn.

I went the poly modeling route. I have along ways to go before I'm good, but I have noticed that while polys are exremely enjoyable and easy to use, I have developed a strong aversion to nurbs. The greater technical requirements just don't appeal to me.

While that might seem as an argument for polys, that is exactly why you should learn nurbs first. Take the pain, work through it, and then you are left with a good knowledge of nurbs and can apply your knowledge to polys, making a speedy learning experience even faster and more enjoyable. Plus you have the complete modeling capabilities of nurbs there to accentuate your poly modeling skills.

[RUEND™]

I have barly started modling in maya and to me nurbs is the best, polys is boring and kills your computer. Nurbs are great there light and its very fun to controll shapes, Polys are boring to me beveling all day is boring. Nurbs is sweet, It seems to take skills to map nurbs im working on that right now.

[Bob27]

I used to work with Max but now I am slowly switching to Maya though I still appreciate many features in Max . One main reason for leaving Max was the fact that I never got easy with The NURBS technique there and I somehow found it difficult - I might be wrong though.
In contrary , I found NURBS in Maya more straight forward and easy to learn.
Am I right? I ask this from the Max users who have worked more with NURBS.
How do you see the NURBS there? Are you comfortable using it? Do you see anything problematic there? IF NURBS is NURBS , no matter what the application you use, then why is it more pleasant to work with it in Maya than in Max?

[RUEND™]

Everyone feels like they have more controll in a sertain program when you try it. you have to try it to know what one you like who knows you might like strata. Me personally love mayas nurb system is so controlling and sweet looking in the making. max's face of when you were nurbing was nasty looking and as well as mayas controlls with the views kill max's

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