this lesson you were introduced to the basic techniques related to lofting curves to create NURBS

Using the Outliner to parent objects
The Outliner is an editor that is useful for quickly examining the structure and components of a scene.
You can use the Outliner to quickly parent objects to create an object hierarchy.
.
To parent an object using the Outliner
1. From the main menu, select Window > Outliner.
The Outliner window is displayed. A list of the scene's components is listed in the Outliner.
2. In the Outliner, click on the word Cap to select it.
3. Parent the cap to the body by middle-mouse dragging Cap onto Body in the Outliner.

By parenting the objects, you can move, rotate, or scale the cap and the body as a single entity
by selecting only the body.

Notice that the salt shaker displays horizontal curves that wrap around the body. The curves are
the original circles you used to loft the surface. Because these curves are part of the surface's
construction history, you can alter their shape if you decide you want to alter the shape of the
body and the body will update based on the construction history.

If you prefer not to see the curves in the scene view, select the curves and select Display > Hide
> Hide Selection. The curves won't appear when you render an image of the scene. Maya displays
only surfaces, not curves, in rendered images.

NURBS Lesson 3: Beyond the lesson

In this lesson you were introduced to the basic techniques related to lofting curves to create NURBS
surfaces:
 You made a salt shaker with two surfaces: a body made from lofted curves and a cap made from
an altered sphere. An advantage of creating a separate surface for the cap and base is that you
can easily give each a different color or texture, for example, one chrome and the other marble.
Another advantage of creating a separate cap is that you can animate the object separately. For
example, you could choose to animate the cap unscrewing from the shakerBody.

 You used a Loft operation rather than a Revolve operation to create the body. The vertical
corrugations on the surface would be impossible to create by revolving a curve.

 You can alter the position of the profile curves and the shape of the shaker will update because of
the construction history. If you're certain you won't change the body's shape by editing the shape
of the lofted curves, you can delete the body's construction history to quicken Maya's processing
of your interaction with the surface. (For a surface as simple as the salt shaker, deleting the
history won't boost processing much.)

 There are many other useful tools for creating and editing surfaces. For a glimpse of the
possibilities, take a look at the Surfaces menu and the Edit NURBS menu.
If you want to learn more about a particular tool or feature that has been presented in this lesson, please
refer to the Maya Help.

Subdivision Surfaces Lessons: Introduction
Subdivision surfaces are a hybrid surface type that possess characteristics of both NURBS and polygonal
surfaces as well as other features not offered by the other surface types. Like NURBS, subdivision
surfaces are capable of producing smooth organic forms and can be shaped using relatively few control
vertices. Like polygonal surfaces, subdivision surfaces let you extrude specific areas and create additional
detail in your surfaces. You do this by working at different levels of detail on the subdivision surface and
switching between the levels when necessary. With a subdivision surface you can build a smooth organic
object from a single primitive and not be concerned about attaching or stitching the various surfaces
together as you would for a NURBS surface.


Subdivision Surfaces Lessons: Preparing for the lesson

To ensure the lesson works as described, do these steps before beginning:

1. Read Polygonal Modeling. Knowledge of polygonal modeling tools is essential to becoming
proficient in subdivision surface modeling.
2. Create a new scene.
3. Select the Modeling menu set.
4. Select Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences.
5. In the Preferences window, select Subdivs from the Categories list to display the subdivision
surface preferences.
6. In the Subdivision Surfaces Component Display settings, set the Component display to Numbers,
then click Save.

By default, the subdivision surface components display as points. For this lesson, you set the
components to display as numbers to see the subdivision surface level directly on the surface.