I am new to Maya and have done several tutorials. I have a project to model a new concept tank for DND. The tank has a more "rounded" look than the current versions. Sort of a volkswagon look. I would like to know if I should do this project with nurbs or polygons. Right now, I think it would be easiest to extrude faces and manipulate CVs on polygons, then use smoothing? Am I approaching this project the best way? Thanks for any advice.
You should do some tutorials in both polygon and nurbs modeling. You should use polygons for the interm if you have any experience or understanding of them from the tutorials you've finished. They are easier to manipulate and smooth when finished. Subdivision modeling is also a very good choice for your project as it's bascially a technique of manipulating polygons and the polygons are being "smoothed" on the fly.
--Polygons use vertices than you can translate to shape your polygon model.
Nurbs use CV's or Control Vertices that you can translate to shape your nurbs patch.
JB
And nurbs is the way to go if you need very high quality renders....
But unless you absolutely know what youre doing then your probably best not touching nurbs!