Chapter 3. Creating Primitives and Text

As pre-made geometry sets that simplify the creation of more complex shapes, primitives are the building blocks of 3D modeling. To understand this, just take a look at the objects around you: Everything in nature, no matter how complex, can be broken down into a few primitive shapessomething you can do right now with the objects in front of you. Is the object you're looking at built around many cylinders like a metal chair, or is it a squashed cube like a door or a wall? Many objects combine a number of different primitives. Take, for example, the bicycle: Its wheels combine a cylinder (for each spoke) and a slim torus (which defines the tires' shape). Likewise, you can use a number of primitives to create a detailed face from a simple sphere, or employ just a few well-placed cubes to construct a building.

Because they can be manipulated in a variety of ways, primitives have become an important part of Maya and other 3D programs. NURBS primitives can speed workflow because the curves have already been drawn and, in many cases, have been replaced with surface geometry. You can stretch, cut, scale, translate, trim, and rebuild them, making them essential to your workflow and great time-savers as well.

Maya includes three primary types of primitives: NURBS, polygons, and subdivs. To help you understand which type is appropriate for the task at hand, this chapter takes a close look at NURBS (Figure 3.1), Polygons (Figure 3.2) and Subdivs (Figure 3.3), explaining the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Figure 3.1. The NURBS primitives (top to bottom): sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, plane, torus, circle, and square.

Figure 3.2. The polygon primitives (top to bottom): sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, plane, and torus.

Figure 3.3. The subdiv primitives (top to bottom): sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, plane, and torus.