Simple editor for Bézier 3D meshes?

[asiga]

I have always avoided 3D Béziers in my graphics work, and did everything directly with plain tri/quad meshes, booleans, and subdiv surfaces. But I really enjoy working with cubic Béziers in 2D and adjusting their tangents, and so I feel like I'd like to experiment in 3D with quadratic Bézier triangles and bicubic Bézier quads (not NURBS, but Béziers).

If we don't consider Blender, is there any (simple) mesh editor that lets you adjust the tangents nicely, in a similar way as with 2D Béziers? Perhaps something like Wings3D but with 3D Béziers instead of Subdiv surfaces?

I have searched and didn't find any (even Rhino is NURBS, not Béziers), so maybe I'm not the only one who avoided 3D Béziers for many years...

 

[Herbert123]

I had to dig deep in my memory here, but I found your answer: Animation:Master.

The only 3d modeling/animation software that focuses on spline-based modeling. It's a bit of an oldie, but still availablel and developed. It's quite inexpensive. Give the trial a whirl to see if you like it:

Hash Inc.: Home

Hash Animation:Master - The 3d software for everybody! It is easy, inexpensive, powerful and fun! Come and join us!

www.hash.com

Also, even if you want to discount Blender, there are good spline addons available that strengthen that part as well: https://github.com/Shriinivas/blenderbezierutils

 

[asiga]

Thanks a lot, Herbert. I feel somewhat puzzled about the obvious lack of editors for Bézier triangles and quads. It seems NURBS were far more successful, but Béziers have the cool point of passing through the control points and defining the curvature with tangents, which make them much more intuitive IMHO. Yes, nowadays subdiv surfaces are the trend, but I'm puzzled about the lack of support to Bézier surfaces... doesn't seem logical at first glance.

 

[Herbert123]

I recall the discussion of spline-based modeling versus polygonal modeling back in the 90s/beginning 2000s. Hash insisted that spline-based modeling is a superior approach due to its ease to prepare characters for animation.

Most modelers at the time preferred polygonal modeling because it is easier to work with, and details are also relatively simple to control. With the exception of Animation:Master all main 3d DCCs focused on polygonal tools. That said, most DCCs have spline-based modeling or NURBS tools as well.

Of course, when Zbrush appeared on the market much of the negatives of polygonal modeling for characters and other organic modeling work were replaced by sculpting workflows. New workflows were introduced for UV'ing, polygonal modeling, etc to offset some of the disadvantages compared to spline-based modeling.

In short, spline-based modeling's few advantages were quickly overshadowed.

In my opinion spline-based modeling is a very indirect and almost clinical method of modeling - similar to CAD parametric construction of models. Artists generally prefer a more loose and direct workflow. Which includes myself: I remember using Animation:Master a long time ago, and I just hated the feel of it. The way I see it most other 3d artists agreed. At the very least, the overall sentiment at the time among 3d artists was that spline-based modeling felt too rigid and uncontrollable.

Of course, the last nail in the coffin was export/import: polygons are easily exported and imported. Even 2d splines still cause difficulties nowadays depending. It is far more involved.

 

[asiga]

Yes, that seems to be what happened. But it's anyway shocking that Bézier surfaces are described in CG books, but almost nonexistent in real apps. I found that there was a Bézier plugin for Sketchup, whose demo videos were really promising, but was abandoned. FWIW, POVRay did have bicubic Bézier patches as one of the native primitive types: http://www.povray.org/documentation/3.7.0/r3_4.html#r3_4_5_2_1