# drawing curves Curves are generally used to create NURBS surfaces. They are like vector paths that move in three-dimensional space. If you are used to the Pen Tool in Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator then you will have an understanding of curves in Maya. > Big important note: never draw your curves in a perspective view or wonky things will happen. Always draw in one of the orthogonal views like Top or Side so that you know they are flattened on one plane. Maya has a number of different ways of drawing curves. They are found in the pulldown menus for **Create > Curve Tools**. ![[Pasted image 20220913174818.png]] All of the tools create similar types of paths; they just work in slightly different ways. Here’s a quick breakdown of the differences. **CV Tool (Control Vertex)**: creates a curve using the control vertex lines. Notice the points that you draw are not on the actual path of the curve. ![[Pasted image 20220913175405.png]] **EP Curve (Edit Points)**: creates a curve where the points are directly on the curve itself. ![[Pasted image 20220913175949.png]] **Bezier Curve Tool**: draw a curve with anchor points exactly like you would in Adobe Illustrator. The hotkeys are not the same and the process isn’t quite as streamlined as you would like. ![[Pasted image 20220913180418.png]] The other three curve tools have limited appeal. The **Pencil Curve Tool** draws a freehand curve but it usually results in far too many Control Vertex points to be usable. The two **Circular Arc** tools simply draw portions of circles. --- ## editing points on the curves Once your curves are created, Maya gives you a ton of options on how to edit and modify them. In most cases, you will select the existing curve and right-click to get the marking menu and slide over to Control Vertex. Your Control Vertex points will appear magenta. ![[Pasted image 20220913181144.png]] All of the different points can now be selected and modified. Use the same Move (W), Rotate (E), Scale (R) tools that you use to modify any other object in Maya. Each point on a Bezier Curve can exist in one of three states: a smooth curved Bezier, a node between a straight and curved section as a Bezier Corner, or a Corner node between two straight sections. To change the state of a point, select a point and then Shift-Right Click to get a marking menu for the options. ![[Pasted image 20220913181444.png]] ## the curves menu In addition to moving points around using Control Vertex, there is also an entire pulldown menu called **Curves** that has a ton of other options. It is fairly easy to understand the purpose of most of these. You can **Add Points**, **Smooth** or **Straighten**, **Open/Close** the curve, etc. ![[Pasted image 20220913182011.png]] ## smooth the display of your curve As a purely aesthetic choice, you can choose to smooth the display of your curves by picking them in Object Mode and then pressing 1,2, or 3 on the keyboard. 1 is chunky and blocky, 2 is a bit smoother, 3 is the smoothest. ![[Pasted image 20220913182719.png]] Learn more: - [Maya Curve Tutorial Part 1 from Digital Dreambox](https://youtu.be/d6cI9WXJkS8) - [Maya Curve Tutorial Part 2 from Digital Dreambox](https://youtu.be/_lv_tUDI6Co) --- Now jump over to [[using curves to make stuff]] to learn how to use these curves to make things. --- tags: #3d #maya #resources home: [[! 3d modeling- maya]]