I have posted sveral messages about nurbs development in the future
blender releases, but it seemed that nobody cared.
I am glad to see thats not the case!
About the question about which of subsurfs and nurbs are the 'best', I would
reply that they don't have the same goal. We often hear/read about subsurfs
superiority, but in many cases I do think nurbs are faster, more precise, and more
intuitive.
Imagine you want do modell your mouse in its exact proportions and
size. You want to model the holes in between the buttons and the body, the
joints in between the several plastic parts too.
Using nurbs tools leads to fast work, only a few curves, having a few points need
to be edited.
Unlike with subsurfs, the curves you edit actually match the shape of the final object ( e.g working with
background pictures of your mouse ). With subsurfs, you need to imagine what the final
object will be, and it will only be an approximation.
Using nurbs trimming and other boolean operations, making the holes for the buttons
in the surface would just take a few minutes ( think about what it is with meshes ) .
In the case were you decide to change the initial shape of the main mouse's surface,
no need to do the 'percing' job again: the holes will follow the new shape, as they still
are children of their original curves.
I really think nurbs tools are irremplaceable for certain types of modelling, expecially
if precision and fidelity to a real shape is wanted. One should remember for what
kind of work they were created: originally they were introduced in industrial CAD/CAO
softs, where maximal precision and productivity is needed.
Of course converting nurbs to meshes or to subsurfs would really by usefull too.
Unfortunately I am unable to code such things... I am just triing to
plaid for the 3d artists cause! We do need nurbs !
I read about a GPL library, named libnurbs++ it can be found at
ftp.linux.co.uk/pub/debian/pool/main/n/nurbs++/
Many people have been working on nurbs for GPL programs such as Moonlight Atelier
or innovation 3d , so that there could be found stuff for it there.
None of these programs have the state of advancement, nor the features of blender.
I think adding to blender nurbs tools such as birail, skin, loft, bevel, curves projections,
booleans operations, would make of it a serious concurrence to commercial apps
such as Maya and others unaffordable monsters.
I hope some coders would recieve our complaint!
Patrice
polypa@free.fr