NURBS Surfaces

NURBS surface objects are the basis of NURBS models. The initial surface you create using the Create panel is a planar segment with points or CVs. It is meant simply to be "raw material" for creating a NURBS model. Once you have created the initial surface, you can modify it on the Modify panel by moving CVs or NURBS points, attaching other objects, creating sub-objects, and so on.

There are two kinds of NURBS surfaces:

Point Surface

CV Surface

You can also create a NURBS surface from a geometric primitive.

NURBS surfaces can contain multiple sub-objects, including NURBS points, NURBS curves, and other NURBS surfaces. These sub-objects are either dependent or independent.

Creating Curve Sub-Objects

Creating Surface Sub-Objects

Creating and Editing Point Sub-Objects

Common Sub-Object Controls

Editing Point Sub-Objects

Editing Curve CV Sub-Objects

Editing Surface CV Sub-Objects

Editing Curve Sub-Objects

Editing Surface Sub-Objects

You can also create NURBS surface sub-objects by objects.

Both NURBS curves and NURBS surfaces have a Display area in the General rollout on the Modify panel. These controls affect which portions of the NURBS geometry are displayed. Next to the Display area is the button that turns on the toolbox for creating sub-objects.

Display Controls for NURBS Models

Warning: When you move CV sub-objects, the effect must be calculated over a region of the surface. Although the calculations are optimized, this is a more involved process than simply moving vertices in an editable mesh. Because of this, if you manipulate large numbers of a NURBS surface's CVs by transforming, animating, applying modifiers, and so on, you will notice a drop in interactive performance.

You can use MAXScript to control NURBS objects. See "Working with NURBS in MAXScript" in the MAXScript help file. Choose Help Additional Help, and then choose MAXScript from the list of additional help files.

Topics in this section
Parent topic: NURBS Modeling