Subdvis or Polygons (highPoly) - Simply Maya User Community

# 1 23-03-2012 , 06:31 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2012

Location: Porto - Portugal

Posts: 22

Subdvis or Polygons (highPoly)? help

Hi,
So i am on a dilemma here.
I modelled this car recently.
3D Dodge Viper RT/10 - YouTube

It was part of my course on advanced Maya.
Now i wanted to make a new car, but modeled in Polygons, for my portfolio to show my skills with it, and to go into more detail that i didnt go with the Viper with NURBS.
But my teacher always told me to do lowpoly base models and then transform them into subdivisions, but i came across one error rendering it with mental ray, and search for it and as it seems i cant assign multiple shaders at the subdivision surfaces and render them with mental ray.
The Viper was rendered with MR, and i really wanted to keep using it as a main Render engine, so i ask you what path shall i take now.

(Note: i am using Maya 2012, and the info i found on the MR problem seemed outdated, about 8.5 Maya, although the error persists)

Shall i increase edge loops and get more definition with them, (seems to me to have much work to it, since i want to avoid lots of edges on the windows and some other areas, and i would have to create some Poles to avoid edge loops along the entire car, in my opinion)?

Shall i transform to subdivision, increase the detail where i want and then transform again to polygon?

Or is there a solution to my problem in the first place.

In the images you can see the low poly car, and so far with all normals soften i've been having good render results already, but as you can see on the other image i would like to improve the quality and detail on those corners so they wouldnt be so square, and to be able to have more detail in the chromed parts.

Thank you

[EDITED]
PS. I noticed something strange, when i converted into subdivision, all the faces became invisible, (not invisible, but with no shader) like it was on wireframe, then i needed to re-assign the shader on the car, and it was then that i came across the error problem when i assigned diferent materials to diferent subdiv faces. And the car rendered came appeared invisible.

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Last edited by BaalRoi; 23-03-2012 at 06:41 PM.

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# 2 23-03-2012 , 06:54 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

The polygons losing their surface shader is a known issue with maya for a few versions now. The solution is to simply select the affected object and reassign the material to it.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 3 23-03-2012 , 06:59 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

Maintaining edge tension in polygons and keeping geometry under control can be a challenge and there no easy press this button or do these same n things to get great results.

You learn tricks for avoiding creases and out of control geometry through trial and error and if possible watching other people work that have learned what to avoid doing the hard way. In many cases you have to make some compromises.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 4 23-03-2012 , 11:21 PM

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Join Date: Jan 2004

Location: Michigan, USA

Posts: 2,998

I do not find sub-division in Maya to be very practical. It has very cheesy crease control (ie multiple partial or full rather then the kind of control you get with modo) and you cannot revert back to polygons without losing all your localized smoothing and creasing making it practically useless! I have spent hours creasing and adding localized detail then realized I needed to make a change at the polygon level and then had to revert back and lost all that subd work. Then redid it only to find I had to go back to poly again! I tried it a couple times and came to the conclusion that Maya's subd is a gigantic time waster and frustration generator.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 23-03-2012 at 11:23 PM.

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# 5 27-03-2012 , 12:38 PM

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Join Date: Nov 2011

Location: Sydney

Posts: 196

Well posting as a relative newcomer and perhaps not eligible to give advice, nevertheless, for the longest time I avoided Maya because I could not fathom the whacked out "nurbs to sub-d back to poly then to nurbs then to..."workflow that I would find in all the tutorials. The only reason I can now actually use it is because I've ignored all that and just use polygons and the smooth (3) key. Basically in other packages this is what's called Sub-D modeling and I don't recognize Maya's Sub-ds, they just seem to create messy meshes. Perhaps I would convert a finished mesh into sub-ds at the very end if it was never going to deform and was staying inside a Maya pipeline, but for pure modeling why make the process so convoluted, check the internet and you will see that any kind of complex shape can be created with simple quad poly meshes smoothed.

Take my words with caution though because I'm still at the learning stage with Maya.

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Subdvis or Polygons (highPoly)? help

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