A 502 polygons sun glasses model (left) subdivided and smoothed in render time using Pixar's Catmull-Clark subdivision mode (right)
The Subdivision modifier implements Pixar OpenSubDiv subdivision modes to subdivide low-polygonal objects into smooth surfaces. The main advantage of using this modifier is that as the subdivision is performed only at render time, you can keep your MXS scenes light, and thus they will open faster, take up less space on your harddrive and also transfer faster over your network when doing network rendering.
A quick look to the Pixar OpenSubdiv modifier and its parameters
Parameters
The Subdivision modifier panel in Studio
Level
Indicates the number of iterative subdivisions of the object.
Type
Allows you to choose between Loop and Catmull-Clark subdivision algorithms.
UV Interpolation
Allows you to choose the interpolation of the UV coordinates for the new geometry, choosing from:
- None: doesn't perform UV interpolation
- Edges: interpolates the UV coordinates from the UV coordinates of the nearest edges
- Edges and Corners: interpolates the UV coordinates taking the UV coordinates of both the nearest edges and corners
- Sharp:
Edge Crease
When set to 0, the polygon is divided evenly at the middle of its length. A higher value approximates the new edge to the original edge, concentrating the subdivision near the edge. This setting is useful to bevel the edges of the model.
Smooth Angle
Angle between two polygons below which the normals are not smoothed after the subdivision.