ACTING & FILM SCHOOL

3D Animation Course Studying Nurbs

This post for the 1 year animation 2nd semester group project, which encompasses many disciplines necessary for an animation and visual effects (vfx) career.

We will be incorporating a car into the group project, and with that in mind we have been studying nurbs hard surface modeling. Most modelers are familiar only with polygon and subdivision modeling, and being unused to nurbs they can be a wee bit intimidated by them. Yet to make an accurate model nurbs are necessary and are used extensively in the industry for this purpose as their ability to create accurate curves and surfaces exceed other methods in this area. Indeed some large animation studios still use nurbs for organic characters, one of the reasons being that nurbs files take up far less space over a busy network.

To view a Ferrari built by NYFA student Chhanda Bhowmik using a nurbs workflow, click here.

On many occasions my ex-students have told me that knowing nurbs modeling has really helped them on the job with difficult modeling challenges, and that their colleagues are impressed with their knowledge.

—

By Robert Appleton, New York Film Academy 3D Animation Instructor