Hi, just playing with CS4 pro, and so I pop a cube into the modeling room, and then choose to smooth subd, to which it subdivides everything as hard edge... in other words, does not "round" out the mesh as a subd view ? What am I doing wrong?

Did you use the subdivide-command from the Selection-menu or the Smooth-option that is in the Modelling-tab of the Properties-tray. Wow, awful lot of terms there. :/ In other words. If you want to smooth your object by subdividing it you must use the Smooth-option that can be found from the Properties-tray. First you have to have atleast one face from the object you wish to smoothen selected. Some how I've got the impression I'm not making things any clearer. -HK

You need to smooth the edges. Those blue lines (yellow when selected) are creased edges. Select all, Selection>Smooth Edges.

hey, thanks folks... the smoothing the edges first did the trick... subd mode now working as expected... :) Thank you guys :)

Welcome to the beautiful world of subdivision surfaces:)

hehe, thanks... I have used CS2 for rendering for a couple of years now, and have modeled with subd, within several other solutions for same period of time... just never really utilized Carrara for said modeling... here's a sample of a scene I am working on, utilizing Carrara for texturing and rendering... I mean it isn't nearly as good as some stuff I have seen done up by so many Carrara user's , but hey, we are having some fun eh :)

Looks cool. Yah, I like the subD's for organic modelling -- the n-gon aspect is one of the nice parts, in that you can add verts and edges with abandon and count on the final mesh to be properly triangulated. I'm even getting over what the mesh looks like (aka random tris, no clean edge loops) enough to use subD's to smooth an already-built model.

Hi... thanks :) Mesh topology is only important when you are considering animation, particularily organic models, as well perhaps should you wish to use a wire shot as part of a grafx, other than that it's pretty much whatever makes the shape and holds the textures... however that said, I kinda think that it is really important to learn good topology from the git go, and thus model always with that in mind, as it doesn't really take any longer to do a nice job as it does to just throw something together, and the end benifits always outweigh the alternative... I mean don't forget those nice animation properties, or those nice to llok at wires, which in turn assist others viewing, on just how to go about things right the first time around... happy modeling

I dunno... Lately I've been modelling with an eye towards the final UVmap, and it has changed my style of modelling. Some tools are essentially off-limits now, as they distort the UVmap in ways that are too time-consuming to clean up. I do like a clean mesh in any case. A clean mesh is easier to read and easier to change.

agreed... :)