Attaching Subdivision Surfaces
The Attach function allows you to attach two selected subdivision surfaces ond create a new single subdivision surface. For the attach to work, the selected surfaces must have the same number of polygonal edges at the base mesh level. The Threshold settings are defined in the polygon Merge Multiple Edges Tool. Partial Crease Vertex Full Crease Vertex Depending on the complexity of the base mesh, there may olreody be o few hierarchy levels from when the Subdivision surface was created. This...
Anatomy of a curve
A Non-Rational Uniform B-Spline NURBS curve is defined by control vertices CVs that control the shape of the curve. The resultant curve approximates the path drawn through the CVs. NURBS curves also have other types of control such as edit points and hulls that help you work with and understand the shape of the curve. when a curve is used to build a surfoce, the curve's number of spons hove o direct influence on the topology of the resulting surfoce. These points define the shape of the curve....
Texturing Subdivision Surfaces
fls with a polygonal surface, to apply a texture to a Subdivision surface, the surface must have UVs. Subdivision surfaces inherit UVs from the polygonal or NURBS surfaces you created them from. To create UVs, switch to Polygon Proxy Mode and use the polygon mapping tools. Shaders need to be applied in the Hierarchy mode to the whole surface or by selecting faces at level 0 or 1. If more detail is needed at the base level, you con add faces manually or increase the detail on the base mesh using...
Stitch Surfaces
The Stitch tool is used on NURBS surfaces to sew points or edges together. This tool is primarily used to keep surface edges together while they ore being deformed, but is also used as part of the modeling process. The technique of patch modeling, where there are several NURBS surfaces that must have surface continuity, is where Stitch can help pull those surfaces together smoothly. The Stitch tool can work three ways stitching points like NURBS surface points or CVs stitching two edges at a...
Info
By intersecting two surfoces, the line of intersection becomes o curve-on-surface on one or both surfoces. A new fillet surface is creot-ed which creates a curve-on-surface ot points of contact on both surfoces. fl paint palette is o good example to show how you con create o Curve-on-Surfoce on both surfaces in order to use the Trim Tool. Here o sphere is used to intersect with o revolved surface. Surfoces trimmed with the Shrink Surfoce option. Set up o ortio revolve for the base. Give it o 36...
Proxy and Hierarchy mode
There ore two modes used to edit a Subdivision surface, Polygon Proxy mode and Hierarchy mode. Both can be easily accessed from the marking menu. Polygon Proxy Mode allows the user access to polygon tools thot con operate on the subdivision base mesh. In this mode, a polygon thot motches the base mesh level 0 of the Subdivision surface is displayed in wireframe. Because everything is connected through construction history, in Polygon Proxy Mode, you can use polygon tools and functions to...
Joining Surfaces
When modeling NURBS surfaces, there are instances where one surface is not sufficient for completing the object and more than one surface may need to be joined together. Modeling organic shapes where one surface must blend seamless into another requires an understanding of how the surface was created and how it will be deformed. The four main options for joining surfaces are attaching, aligning, stitching, and surface fillets. For best results with any of these options, you should have the same...
Tessellating Subdivision Surfaces
Tessellating a Subdivision surface produces a polygon with a surface that corresponds with the Subdivision surface. In Polygon Proxy Mode, mony of the polygon tools ore available to modify subdivision surfoces. The above imoge demonstrates how the Split Polygon Tool can be used to create on extra face thot is then extruded, ond how o foce con be deleted on the bottle to creote an opening. Single subdivision surface after Attach Single subdivision surface after Attach This model, that wos shown...
Curve Degree
A curve's degree determines how the curve is approximated based on the positions of the CVs. The number of CVs minus the curve degree gives you the number of spans in an open curve. Animators will find that Degree 1 and Degree 3 curves are the most useful for building geometry. Degree 1 offers a way of creating sharp edges between curve spans while Degree 3 offers a curvature continuous see section on Aligning Curves relationship betweerKspans. Degree 2 curves aren't smooth enough for...
Using the Trim Tool
The Trim tool uses curves-on-surface thot ore either closed or meet the edge of the surface to perform a trim. The following example has a curve-on-surface created by projecting 0 NURBS curve in the Front view. The curves gets projected onto anything in its path in the Front view. Press Enter to compete the operation. Repeat these steps to any other surfaces with curves on them. Remember thot ony surface thot is trimmed con be untrimmed ot ony time using the Untrim Surfaces function. Orow a...
Working with Curves
The basis for most NURBS surface is the creation of NURBS curves. In most cases the curve is created by placing control points in space. The decision to use the CV curve tool or the Edit Point curve tool depends on the precision of the placements of the control points. If the positioning is approximate and will be refined, the CV tool is appropriate. If the points need to be in specific positions, the Edit Point tool will place the curve where you click ond the CVs for the curve will be created...
Curve Points
a curve point is on arbitrary point on the curve. It con have the some position os on edit point, but it's a different type of curve component. You might select a curve point, for example, to insert a knot, cut a curve into two parts, or attoch a Point-on-Curve deformer. Click the right mouse button over the curve to occess the marking menu. Use the cursor to move to a point olong the curve. At the selected curve point, the curve wos detached. At the selected curve point, o Point-on-Curve...
Drawing Curves
To create curves, Maya has several tools that use different techniques to generate a line. In all cases, the resulting lines are simply curves with edit points, CVs, and spans. By choosing the right tool, you can get to the desired shape more easily. In some cases, the tool creates a curve that has o History node, which gives you extra attributes to tweak while editing the shape. You can set the curve degree and the parameterization before drawing the curve, or you may draw a curve, and then...