Hello,

I'm a hobbyist modeler, mainly focusing on building game environments (I plan on making my own platform game).

I started modeling on SGI machines using Alias/PowerAnimator and Softimage 3D.

I don't know why but I love modeling with NURBS curves and surfaces. I find them very convenient for very quickly making "curvy" landscapes and other organic surfaces.

I tried modeling/sculpting with polygons but I find it very hard (if not impossible) to achieve the same look.

Knowing that NURBS aren't used at all in the gaming industry is beyond my understatement...

I'm also a fan of Nintendo games, more precisely Mario games.

As such I noticed in games like Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy or Mario Odyssey, that the environments have that "curvy" look that screams "Made with NURBS".

Could Nintendo be using NURBS to model their game worlds, then converting them to polys (this can be done very quickly in Maya for instance) ?

Or do they only model in polys from beginning to end ?

I know Nintendo is very secretive just about everything but if someone has infos on the subject that would be great.

Thanks a lot

NurbsGuy said:
As such I noticed in games like Mario Sunshine, Mario Galaxy or Mario Odyssey, that the environments have that "curvy" look that screams "Made with NURBS".

To model curvy stuff, Catmull Clark Subdivision Surfaces became standard. (Well, before there was sculpting)

I guess this is what they use at Nintendo, but don't know. Disney uses it for most modeling for sure.

For organic modeling it's great, and better than Nurbs IMO. Nurbs remains attractive for technical things like cars.

It seems to me that it was likely patch-based modelling, tesselated on-the-fly, at least back in the old days.

I refer to the Yoshi model in Mario Kart and Mario Tennis for GameCube. there is a seam in the geometry in his belly… a crack. if it were simply polygons, the seam would be closed by the person doing the modeling.

what I find interesting is that Nintendo QA sucked so bad back then. what a hack job.

Are you Canadian?

@ JoeJ: yes I tried subdivs too, they are very handy and were indeed meant to replace NURBS. I can achieve more or less the same results but with more work and less control. I will also try to master sculpting as it seems it is the de facto standard now. NURBS are the only way to go for industrial design (car design like you mentioned)

@ taby: I'm french. The presence of a seam confirms that Nintendo used at some point (until Mario Galaxy I think) NURBS/patch modeling. I very often have seams too in my models, that I fill once the surface has been tessellated (by creating new faces manually). This is also why NURBS were replaced by poly modeling, as they made animating the model very difficult.

@nurbsguy Do you also use Nurbs for character models? Some results would be very interesting to see. I have tried it myself, but using the tools was somewhat too hard and complicated for me. I also made my own tool, using only Bezier Patches. Was not bad but then CC subdiv came up and was just better.

OK, because Softimage and Alias were both from Canada.

I'm sure you know this, but it's pronounced soft-imaj … comme, en Francais. ?

I thought Softimage was from France, coincidently?

Nope, it was from Montreal; the heart of French-Canada.

@JoeJ: I don't use NURBS for character models. I think that would be too difficult to model / animate. But still, that's how they modeled characters in the 90s (for example the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park were splines based). You made your own tool, that's impressive considering the maths behind splines are very difficult. I once tried to write an OpenGL app to generate NURBS, however I quickly gave up as I lacked the math skills required.

@taby: yes Alias and Softimage are from Canada, and Softimage is pronounced “the french way”. These software were very advanced for their time.

@NurbsGuy Indeed. I remember Godzilla's textures being 2GB in size. That was a lot of data for the late 1990s! And Starship Troopers!!!!!!!!!!!

I was in love with Softimage|3D, but I couldn't afford it – it was the price of a small car. LOL