Exploring NURBS in Maya

What you'll learn

In this Maya tutorial, we will discuss the basics of using NURBS geometry in our modeling workflow. NURBS stands for Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline, but they are much more useful to a 3d artist than the name might indicate. In this series of lessons, we'll get up to speed on NURBS geometry and talk about some of the ways it can be used in our modeling workflows. We'll begin by talking about the basic NURBS building blocks and look at the different NURBS components that can be manipulated to get the shapes we want. We'll cover methods for creating curves, the framework of NURBS objects. We'll then explore many of the ways that we can use curves to create different types of NURBS objects, from revolving to extruding and lofting. We'll also talk about using trimmed surfaces to create complex cut-outs and we'll discuss NURBS parameterization. In addition, we'll look at ways of attaching and detaching curves and surfaces, combining objects with Booleans, and methods of blending together multiple objects. In the end of this Maya tutorial, you'll have a better idea of what NURBS geometry is and how you can start to integrate it into your modeling workflow. Software required: Maya 2012.

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