How to Fill a Curve in Maya

By Jack Gerard

Maya is a 3-D modeling program by Autodesk that provides a number of ways to create 3-D objects and animations. One method of creating objects in Maya is with the use of nonuniform rational b-splines, usually shortened to NURBS. With NURBS, you can create individual lines known as splines or "curves" and create complex polygon meshes that follow the contour set up by the curves. Once you create the curves, of course, you must know how to fill the space between curves with polygons to create a model mesh.

Instructions

1.      Launch Maya and open the scene containing the NURBS curves that you wish to fill. If the curves have not been created, create them within the scene using the CV Curve Tool in the Create menu to create curve-vertex points directly, the EP Curve Tool to create curve-editing points that allow you to tweak the positioning of curve-vertex points or the Pencil Curve Tool to directly draw the curve with your mouse or stylus.

2.      Click one of the curves in the Maya scene to select it. Hold down the "Shift" key on your keyboard to enable the multiselect function and click another curve to select it as well. The selected curves create the outline of the area you wish to fill. Select additional curves, if necessary, to fully define the fill area.

3.      Select the "Loft" option from the Surfaces menu to create a lofted plane that passes through the selected curves and recreates their 2-D geometry in a 3-D form. The lofting function will automatically create the polygons necessary to make a 3-D mesh that covers the area.