Chapter 1

I have now read and followed the first chapter of the 'Character Modeling with Maya and ZBrush: Professional Polygonal Modeling Techniques' book. I learnt a lot about the first stages of character modeling and how it fits within the production process.

The first chapter is titled 'Pipeline and Modeling Guidelines', firstly I learnt about the pipeline of a production. In simple terms this mens that I learnt about the different stages a project goes through in order for it to be completed. I will not go into detail about pipeline and its importance because I already knew about it before reading the book. Seeing as this unit is about advanced research, finding out and learning things that I do not already know it makes sense to not talk about the topics that I already know.

After talking about pipeline the book then explains how to set up a new project in Maya. As I have been using Maya for a while now setting up a new project is something that I have done many times. So at the moment this chapter of the book has covered topics that I already currently know about.

At the end of the chapter this then changed. The last two pages of the chapter are about the difference between modeling with Polygons and modeling with NURBS surfaces. This is a bit of a grey area for me as I have only ever modeled with polygons. I had come across NURBS a few times before and had experimented with them but I did not have a great understanding about the difference between the two. One of the main things that I wanted to know was what NURBS were used for. This part of the chapter really cleared up any of my confusion and taught me something that I didn't know before.

I learnt that to start with NURBS were mainly used in many film houses instead of polygons. This was due to the fact that a very high number of polygons were needed to achieve photo realistic characters and environments etc. Due to technology back then the render times for very high polygon models were way too long. Using NURBS surfaces meant very organic characters could be created and would fit within the rendering budgets.

I then went on to learn that there are some major drawbacks with NURBS modeling. One major problem is the NURBS surface patches could loose their stitching during the rigging and animation stages. This is a problem because these two stages follow the modeling stage. This means the model would have to be handed back to the modeler and fixed, this then adds on more time and slows down the production. The other main problem is NURBS surfaces had to properly be parametized for texturing, and surface trims had to be dealt with if holes were needed in the model. Polygons have none of these drawbacks making them a better candidate for modeling.

I learnt the many advantages of polygon modeling. Polygons can be made of a single mesh, the UV's can be edited independently without changing the mesh, and polygons can contain holes in the mesh as desired. Polygons also tend to be much easier for new artists to learn to use for modeling. The only real disadvantage of polygon modeling is the fact that an incredibly high number of polygons are needed in order to create organic characters.

I found out that the tables have now turned and polygon modeling is now mainly used in many film and game houses instead of NURBS modeling. The reason for this is the development of technology. We now have more powerful computers that can handle an incredibly high amount of polygons needed for photo realistic film projects. Seeing as technology is constantly developing it becomes apparent how CGI keeps on developing and improving.

However NURBS modeling is not completely extinct. It is still a technique that is very useful for hard surface modeling. A perfect example that NURBS modeling is used for is modeling vehicles. The reason NURBS surfaces are one of the best ways to model vehicles is because a vehicle is formed of lots of panels. Another reason is because vehicle models have hard surfaces that wont deform, this means there is no danger of gaps appearing where the different surfaces meet. So perhaps after learning about Organic Modeling it would be wise for me to learn about NURBS modeling, as it seems that it is a skill that could still be very useful.