3D Animation for the Raw Beginner Using Autodesk Maya 2e, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2

The Gold Standard of Polygon Modeling and the NURBS Alternative

With examples: A polygon glass table, a T-shirt made out of cloth, a chalice, and a NURBS glass table.

In this chapter, we focus on the basics of polygon modeling and NURBS modeling. An important issue is the extreme differences between these two techniques. The way that one creates a model with polygon tools is very different from the way one would build a similar model with NURBS tools—and the differences in these two approaches reflect a deep contrast between the way a polygon model and a NURBS model are represented mathematically. Often, the key difference is one of a top-down vs. a bottom-up approach, but this is an oversimplification. In the end, modelers are free ...