Introducing Maya® 2011

Using Artisan to Sculpt NURBS

Imagine that you can create a NURBS surface and sculpt it using your cursor the way hands are used on wet clay to mold the surface. You can do just that with a Maya module called Artisan—and without the mess!

Try This Artisan is basically a 3D painting system that allows you to paint directly onto a surface. By painting on the surface with the Sculpt Geometry tool, you move the CV points in and out, effectively molding the surface.

1. In Shaded mode (press 5), maximize the Perspective window (press the spacebar) for a nice big view. Create a NURBS sphere, and open the Attribute Editor. In the sphere’s creation node (makeNurbSphere1), set Sections to 24 and Spans to 12. The greater the surface definition, the more ...