Seams/gaps in NURBS models: Maya vs Alias/Power animator?

tmelr

New member
Feb 27, 2021
15
3
3
I'm trying to create animations that are similar to Alias Poweranimator ones with the Maya Renderer, but am having issues rendering nurbs. There are gaps and seams between surfaces that are adjacent. This is true for Planar Surface, Booleans, Trims, and Filleted Edges (created with the round tool). The only nurbs operations that seem to work seamlessly are fillets/blends.

Even a very simple boolean subtraction (a plane with a sphere ) won't render properly. Of course I expect seams with nurbs animation/deformation, but not with static objects! This seems to be the fault of the Maya renderer and the Maya's NURB tools, and how maya handles nurbs.

With Alias/PowerAnimator being more of a proper CAD program, I think it would be would be better at this sort of thing. (I know Rhino 3D is) Or was this also a problem with the old Alias renderer as well??

I can only go by Youtube videos and looking at the old versions of Poweranimator/Alias and there seem to be no gaps with trims and I'm pretty sure that the modern version of Alias wouldn't have this problem.


Maya trim:
maya trim.jpg



Rhino 3D trim:
rhino trim.jpg



Maya round edge:
with filleted edges.png






In any case, I think I will have use Rhino 3D for nurbs modeling instead and just use Maya for animation and rendering, and refining nurbs characters. (The blends/fillets in Rhino aren't animateable while in Maya they are)

Please let me know of any other advantages/disadvantages Maya renderer had to Poweranimator.

Thanks in advance.
 

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Elf

Storybook / Retired, ex-staff
Feb 4, 2019
792
252
63
Mountain West (US)
It has been over a decade since I have used Maya and someone else may have better advice, but I seem to remember that the renderer had options to set around NURBS tessellation? In other words, it would translate the NURBS object into something of higher or lower quality (number of polys/facets?) based on how you configured it and distance to the camera, or some such thing.
 

indigofan

Member
Jun 8, 2020
64
22
8
You can change the number of facets created, as well as smooth them out in Maya / PA. Look for some of the settings, I have never had this issue.
 

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