Hi Nick,

> Thanks for highlighting the "Surface-matching" issue. Lets see if I understand
> what you guys are saying:
> MoI _will_ be able to create all the curves and surfaces sufficiently - however the
> problem occurs when I will try to connect multiple surfaces together into one complex
> surface so that everything has continuity?

Yes, that's pretty much it - for that type of modeling you will end up working at a more "patchwork of individual surfaces" construction type workflow on the NURBS side which is fairly different than the solids modeling boolean oriented type workflow.

It's in the solids modeling toolset that NURBS modeling really shines, that's when it is basically at its most convenient and powerful level where you are able to make a lot of things happen with a small number of 2D curves. With a "patchwork of surfaces" type workflow you will instead be working in a much more finicky and advanced area of NURBS modeling.

When dealing with a patchwork of surfaces constructed next to each other the surface continuity becomes an issue. Just constructing 2 NURBS surfaces along some common construction curve at an edge does not make the surfaces inherently smooth to one another, that's where sub-d modeling has a big difference since adding more polygons to existing ones does make the subdivided results smooth to each other.


> > "Are you planning on physically manufacturing these designs, or are they going
> > to be used only for animations and renderings?"
> Only for presentation purposes. Rendering and animation.

Then I'd really suggest that your strong focus on accuracy is somewhat misplaced.


> For me trying to sub-d model the final model has proven extremely hard. I dont
> have the understanding of topology and experience to create a good edge-flow etc.
> to avoid things as spiders that would mess up the surface.

Yes there is no doubt a lot of learning curve involved and a lot of experience needed. But also there are a lot of tutorials you can get into especially for character modeling, so there are resources that can help you to gain these skills. The area where it tends to work well is it can more easily deliver a smooth looking complex organic skin.

There are various trade-offs though, often times any kind of cutting operation with sub-d is difficult, you basically don't get to cut things by 2D projected curves at all anymore, with sub-d modeling holes and openings have to be an integrated part of the topology. If there are many cuts and holes in the shape this can become extremely burdensome. It's also why sub-d modeling will never replace NURBS modeling for regular mechanical part design where various cuts and drilled holes are very common.

In the future a fusion between these methods will be more common, with being able to use sub-d modeling techniques to build a base surface but with that surface as a NURBS result so that you can perform booleans and cuts on it using the NURBS toolset as well.

- Michael