Quick question on polygon surfaces

# 1 19-03-2009 , 12:55 PM

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I built up a car starting off with a flat plane then extruding edges and tweaking.. now I only have the side done and need to finish the top but I need to draw a curve for the windshield.... can you draw a curve on a polygon surface? I have googled the crap out of this and posted in here under nurbs and curves and had many views but no replies. So figured I'd try in here. The tutorial I was following did not mention the type of surface.. he just said make one and extrude edges..etc. So thats what I did and now im stuck. Can SOMEONE help? I've even asked this in CGtalk with no luck.

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# 2 19-03-2009 , 01:21 PM

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Select the surface and under Modify click on Make Live, this will allow you to draw a curve on an object.

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# 3 19-03-2009 , 01:31 PM

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thanks a bunch.. I will have to try that out when I get home.. unfortunately forgot my files there user added image

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# 4 19-03-2009 , 01:36 PM

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just tested it out and I see make live freezes the object. Then I made a curve with the cv curve tool over it.. but what now? Do I need to attach to surface or something?

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# 5 19-03-2009 , 02:06 PM

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im not certain what you are trying to achieve , if its a windshield you can draw two curves and loft between to create a surface .
If you explain exactly what it is you are trying to do then maybe i can help more .

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# 6 19-03-2009 , 02:14 PM

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I followed a tutorial on making a car... so piece by piece I made the side of the car and then mirrored so I pretty much had the bottom half without the roof.... Here is the link to the tutorial I was following.

https://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tut...ar/index3.html

So looks like he made a curve and it was somehow applied to the surface.. now I can use the split polygon tool but that isn't as smooth.. I was looking for adding a cv curve to apply to the surface so I can extrude that selection.. I'm not sure if im explaining it right but hopefully you will know what I mean by that link. Looks like he made a curve and extruded the section up to modify the windshield. If all else fails I could just do what you said.. make some curves and loft.

ok now I feel like an idiot... they used the split polygon tool... and I just must have missed it in the text.... but anyways.. would it be possible to apply a curve to a surface thats not nurbs?

pardon my "noobness" haven't done animation since 2004 and that was with 3ds max.. so tryin to get a handle on it all again with Maya

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# 7 19-03-2009 , 02:19 PM

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I looked at the tut and he just used the split poly tool and then extruded.
it is not possible to connect a curve to a poly but you can create geo with curves and then convert the geo to poly and attach it afterward if thats a route you want to take.

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# 8 19-03-2009 , 02:24 PM

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yeah that is true. just wasn't sure if I could create a curve right on the surface so then I could edit.. just from the picture it looked like he had smooth curves but it was just the split tool. I know a 3D cad program... Rhinoceros and its based on Nurbs curves so I did lots of lofting in my time but it seemed to create tons of polygons so my files weren't so small and sucked up CPU. So initially i have fear of Nurbs curves in anything.. but that was possibly just bad modeling on my part. Anyways.. thanks for the help, I'll continue on with the tutorial and hope for the best. So far Maya seems pretty fun and I enjoy it more than 3D studio max.

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Quick question on polygon surfaces

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