9

Surfacemodelingismorefreeformthangeometric
(parametric) modeling. Although you can create
Patch and NURBS primitives from the Create
panel, more often a surface model beg ins when you
use the quad menu (page 3–694) or the modifier
stack (page 3–760) to “collapse” a parametr ic
modeltosomeformofeditablesurface.Onceyou
have done so, a variety of tools let you shape the
surface. A lot of surface modeling work is done by
editing sub-objects (page 3–1017) of the surface
object.
See also
Patch Grids (page 1–993)
Editable Patch Surface (page 1–968)
Editable Mesh Surface (page 1–996)
Editable Poly Surface (page 1–1022)
NURBS Modeling (page 1–1078)
Subdivision Surfaces (page 1–963)
Tools for Low-Polygon Modeling (page 1–1252)
Subdivision Sur faces
A subdivision surface is a surface that has b een
dividedintomorefaceswhileretainingtheobject’s
general shape. You perform subdivision to add
more detail to an object, or to smooth it out.
You can create a subdivision surface by apply ing a
modifier to an object. 3ds Max supports two kinds
of subdivision surfaces:
•TheHSDS modifier (page 1–701) provides
hierarchical subdivision surfaces.
•TheMeshSmooth modifier (page 1–722) and
TurboSmooth modifier (page 1–868) provide
smoothing.
Both these modifiers work bes t as finish ing tools
for models.
The Inte rface (page 1–1061) for an Editable
Poly object (page 1–1022) allows you to add a
subdivision surface to this type of object without
the us e of a modifier.
Soft Selection Rollout
Selec t an editable pa tch, editable mesh, editable poly,
editable spline, an object that has an Edit Me sh, Edit
Patch, or Edit Spline modifier applied to it, or an object
that has a comparable Selec t modifier applied to it.
> Modify panel > Choose a sub-object level. > Soft
Selec tion rollout
The Soft Selection controls allow you to partially
select sub-objects in the vicinity of an explicit
selection. This causes the explicit selection to
Surface Modeling