You can convert a NURBS surface to a polygon mesh whether it was created in Maya LT or imported from another 3D application. Trimmed surfaces are also converted in the process.
If the NURBS surface has a texture applied to it, this texture is assigned to the new polygonal object. The NURBS to Polygons action bakes the NURBS UV values onto the corresponding polygonal vertices.
To convert NURBS to polygons
- Select the NURBS surface and choose Modify > Convert > NURBS to Polygons.
A polygonal representation of the surface is created at the same position as the NURBS surface.
If you convert the NURBS surface with construction history on, you can edit the NURBS surface and the polygonal surface will be recreated to match.
Notes
- If a NURBS surface is converted into a polygonal object using the NURBS To Polygons feature, and if the history of the NURBS surface is modified to generate an invalid (Null) NURBS surface, the following warning message displays:
Warning: nurbsTesselate1 (Nurbs Tesselate Node): invalid input NURBS surface.
and the NURBS To Polygons operation will not be successfully performed. The resulting polygonal object will continue to be the last valid (computed) polygonal surface that was visible.
- In some cases when converting multiple NURBS patches to a single polygonal mesh you may notice strange shading effects on the mesh. This is because of the normals. To correct the shading due to normals, see Fill holes in a polygon mesh.
- NURBS to polygon conversion does not take the Fix Texture Warp attribute (which adjusts a texture’s UV parameters so the texture does not rely on a NURBS object's UV parameterization) into account.