i was just wondering how you all decide what type of modelling to go with?

as there are a few different ways of modelling everything, its hard, especially for a newbie to know what approach to take when modelling.

is there a general rule of thumb - say for example nurbs for organics / poly's for hard surfaces / sub division for hands.

then there is the different ways of using them all like drawing the curves the lofting the surface or start with a box to box out the rough shape before adding detail or a plane then extrude the edges out etc.

any help much appreciated

I'd say that poly's/sub-d's are the easiest to start out with, as it's kinda like clay, you mold it as you go along. With nurbs you work with curves and have to plan more ahead than with poly's... At least that my experiences.

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just use polys then do nurbs some other time if i were u, when u know more about maya

well it depends on what youre modeling but if its a ogranic model i usually start with nurbs to rough out the basic shape of the model then i converting it to polygons and toggeling between polygon and subd,im new into maya so i dont know if its the best techniqe but it works for me

i use polys for everything :p sometimes i use nurbs for some things then convert them

When I convert nurbs, everything gets all jacked up and goes into triangles even when I set the convert options to quads...

Hmm, not everything can go into quads. Best thing you can do probably is quadrangulate your mesh after.

There are so many options and tools for each type that it can get a little confusing on what to try.
I found more polygon tutorials on the things I was interested in - modelling objects, heads, uncomplicated things etc.. and so tried those out first. Either will give you the skills in moving around the UI (interface) of maya which is what you really need to pick up on. Once you know your way around the program then its a lot easier to start learning a different modelling method.

My personal preference at the moment is polys as I like learning how to keep the objects simple. This will hopefully mean I have to learn lots about texturing to make things look good.

Oh and dont try learning all the types straight away or you might be overwhelmed

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I personally started with polygons like most people I guess. my favorite is modeling organic forms. I usually start with poly and convert it to subD to check or tweak around, then convert it back to poly - split and cut and convert it back to subD and so on. for things like cars etc I think it´s easier to use nurbs as they give you a more homogeneous and of less overwhelming complexity substance to work with than polys. whatever method you use - use it often so you´ll get used to it soon.

kind regards
falott

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everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.

It's really just a matter of what you're comfortable with. I started out with NURBS mostly for the fact because I had a difficult time getting objects smoothed right in poly, and for the fact that NURBS already has UVs laid out. Unfortunately, NURBS also are a lot more finicky to work with which is why I seldom use them anymore except for certain things. They aren't as straight forward as polygon modeling, which like others have said, is like working with clay...or if you're modeling poly by poly, like a spider weaving a web.

Personally, I mostly opt for box modeling using poly proxy (where I have the smoothed proxy side by side with the raw model I'm tweaking) or building a model poly by poly. The idea of this is that you create a polygon then keep extruding edges/merging vertices into the shape you want. Both are pretty quick as far as getting basic shapes. I've never really sat at length using sub-d...always gets a little confusing for me and using poly proxy when box modelling is essentially the same result.

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thanks for all the advice...

im already fairly familiar with poly modelling... for a newbie anyways
but find it difficult in what way to approach a model... once i get proficient in poly modelling i guess that will come with experience and objects will be come easier to model.

as is always the case... practise practise practise

you might want to try modeling one thing with different methods - poly, nurbs and subDs. maybe 2 things. an organic one and let´s say a house or a car. afterwards you can tell yourself what method matches which kind of modeling stuff the best way for you.

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everything starts and ends in the right place at the right time.