Subdivision surfaces and modelling techniques (tutorials)

[cathy_easthope]

Hello all.

In their animation module, my students have to produce polygon models, nurbs models  and subdivision surface models. However, although many tutorials are available for the first two types, subdivision surfaces seem to be very scantily covered out there. I have the gist; proxy cages, division levels and so on, but I cannot find a comprehensive account of subdivision modelling anywhere. What tutorials there are are often contradictory, or ancient (harking back to the time when there was a specific Subdivision submenu in the Create menu in Maya) and I simply cannot logically guide my students in these techniques. Also Maya doesn't seem to implement some subdivision features, even though they are still there. For example in Preferences there is a Subdiv item which claims to be able to display subdivision components as points or numbers. I have never been able to display numbers. I really would appreciate any guidance to a good, rational and comprehensive guide to creating and modifying subdivision surfaces. Can anyone help me? Thank you

[Kahylan · Accepted solution]

Hi!

Thats because Subdivision surfaces are kind of obsolete in todays day and age.

Polygons models and Nurbs surface models are based on entirely different ways to caluculate the surface of the object based on the components that define it and how the edges/isoparms move when components get moved around them or added to the object etc.

Subdivision surfaces on the other hand just take an existing polygon model or nurbs surface model and run a filter over it to give it more subdivisions and smooth it out. The most common filter for subdivision surfaces is the Catmull-Clark filter, which is what you display when you use "display smoothmesh preview" .

Every polygon shape object has in the attribute editor a "Smooth Mesh" Tab, in which you can tweak if the mesh should be displayed smooth and and how the smoothing should be calculated. This has the most important features of subdiv surface objects. And it is way more intuitive than the subdiv object workflow used to be.

That is basically the extent to which Subdiv Surfaces are a part of Maya Modelling today.

You can still create acutal subdiv objects in the following way:

1) Create a polygon model or nurbs surface and select it.
2) Use Modifiy-> Convert-> Polygons to Subdiv/Nurbs to Subdiv

This will create a Subdiv Model with all its perks and quirks. But I don't really see why that would be beneficial, since it just gives you the same as smooth mesh preview, without the added bonus of switching back and forth between smoothed and not smoothed, which is a really intuitive way for beginners to spot their mistakes.

I've been working with Maya since Version 2015 and I've had to ask people who have done it longer than me to answer this question, because this workflow was already outdated 10 years ago. I wouldn't teach this to new students, as they will likely never use it. I'd probably switch the assignment to having a nurbs model, a hardsurface poly model and an organic poly model in the animation. 🙂

I hope it helps!

PS: I also don't know what the display numbers preferences is about, I tried to get it to work in Maya 2024 with the friend who helped me answering this question, we couldn't get it to work. He said that he used to do that in maya 2011, but this setting probably went obsolete somewhere along the way

[cathy_easthope]

Thanks Kahylan, that's very useful.

I had thought that it was being deprecated, and it accounts for the various bits and pieces still dotted around the Maya interface, some of which work, and some of which don't! I knew I could convert polys to subdivs and vice versa and will give some thought to whether there are still any advantages. I suppose being able to work on a polygon proxy cage whilst still viewing the smooth mesh preview might be one of those.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to reply. It's much appreciated.

Best wishes,

Cathryn

[mihirsbcc]

This is way back when Maya was trying to have the similar NURBS modeling tools available in a sudo Poly model modification. I know the SubD you are talking about. That was a period when it was a Hybrid technique. That is gone since Maya V6 or 8. I still have a few model created using that process. Now it is available directly in Poly Hard surface modeling. Those models I have will not open in Maya now. Splitting a subD vert was giving more vert/faces. You should remove that assignment for your students.