Polygonal modeling is typically used for hard-edged surfaces that don't bend or in situations where low polygon counts are important, such as modeling for games. With Maya 5, you can easily convert between polygons, SubDs, and NURBS patches. This allows you to begin the model in one format and then convert to another, if necessary, or to use the advantages of editing or rendering a model in another format.

Polygonal Primitives

There are several ways to use primitives to build objects quickly and easily. Use primitives as a starting point, then uses a combination of polygon creation and editing operations to complete a task. The most basic object type is primitive. Primitives are pure shapes that can be used as the basis of creating more complex models. There are six polygonal primitives objects---sphere, Cone, Cylinder, Cube, Plane and Torus. 

Fig4-1 Polygon primitives

To create a primitive with the default option settings, select  create > Polygon Primitives and choose the primitive you want to create from the menu. You can always edit the primitive from the channel Box or its Attribute Editor.

Fig 4_2   Attribute Editor

Section Radius option

The section Radius option value specifies the size of the sections .Change this value to increase or decrease the radius of  sections to see the result.

Subdivision Axis

For spheres, cylinders, cones and toruses , this option defines the number of subdivisions there are around the axis defined by the Axis option. This option is also called Subdivisions Axis .Increase or decrease this value to add or take away faces around the axis defined by the Axis option.      

Subdivision Height

This option defines the number of subdivisions there are along the axis defined by the Axis option. Height is equivalent to the Y directions by default.Increase or decrease this value to add or take away faces in the Axis direction.

Fig4-3 Subdivision height

Creating and Editing Text

The Poly text type creates text as Polygons .When this text type is selected, a planar trim curve is created between the curves and tessellate nodes. By default, Maya creates text as Nurbs geometry.

To create polygonal text

• Select Create > Text to open the Text Curves option window and set the Type option to poly.
  
  
• Type the text you want to write in the text box.
  
  
• Change the default font settings if required.
  
  
• Change the option settings.
  
  
• Click the create button to create the text.                                                     

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