Hi everyone, I have been using maya now for 6 months now. I have have been working on this topo model for 2 weeks now without any satisfactory results.
Here is my problem: I have the topograpgy lines as Nurbs curves and they look great. They are 1' contours meaning that at each line goes up 1 foot.
So I am selecting each countour line (nurbs Curve) and lofting. I must be doing this wrong but there are holes that result from...say 2 lofted surfces next to each other. I try stitch, attach, you name it. All I want is a smooth landscape as a result from all these lofted surfaces. The more and more I work on the more I find it hopeless to get one continuous smooth topgrapgy from these contour line.
If anyone can offer any methods that would make my life easier please help!
Thanks,
Moff
do you, or perhaps a client, happen to have the hight field map that the crvs are derived from? if you do, you could simply use that to polygonally displace your surface, or to keep it nurbal use the map in artisan. if you dont have the map, you could derive it from the crvs... planar trim each isoline (w a high teselation, 'smooth edge') and shae w a constant shader grey scaled to its height. the render from top and blur, might work fine!?
if, however, you wish your surface to topologically flow w your topography you'll need to look into patch modelling a little more (lsearch the term if your not familiar, you'll find bucket loads). you might like to go to polys rather than having to stitch, but use the nurbs tools to get your polys to stick together: try birailing between your isolines and converting to polys by count or some non-uniform method as i guess the isolines are parametrically the same (probably why your having problems at the moment? ...you might try rebuilding all your curves to have the same number of spans and parameterisation..yeah, try that. then just cut up the top isolines into four and do a square surfce to deal w those poles...).
g.luck!
Wow thanks for the info I guessed there would be no weasy way, let me do some experimenting with the suggestions that you offered....It may take some time to try these.I will keep you posted....thanks Camp!
Camp? heh, perhaps w/o the p!
camp:
1 : exaggerated effeminate mannerisms exhibited especially by homosexuals
2 : a homosexual displaying camp
3 : something so outrageously artificial, affected, inappropriate, or out-of-date as to be considered amusing
4 : something self-consciously exaggerated or theatrical
heh, just for fun 
hope something works out for ya, keep us posted.