Render subdivision surfaces

User Guide > Modeling > Subdivision Surfaces > Subdivision surfaces tips >

You can fine-tune the quality of the rendered surface by adjusting the settings in the Tessellation section of the subdivision surface Attribute Editor. Subdivision surfaces also support displacement mapping.

You can potentially create very finely tessellated polygons. As an extreme example, a Uniform tessellation of a 10 quad base mesh, with Depth and Sample Count set to 10 will produce about a billion triangles.

Format

Select one of the tessellation methods.

Uniform: Uniform tessellation produces a polygon with an equal number of faces for each of the subdivision surface’s base mesh faces (faces at level 0).
Adaptive: Adaptive tessellation produces a polygon with an equal number of faces for each of the finest level faces on the subdivision surface. The more refinement you’ve made to a region of the subdivision surface, the more faces the resulting polygon will have for that same region. Use Sample Count to increase the tessellation.
Depth: For Uniform tessellation only, set the level to determine how many faces are to be used in the tessellation. For example, if Depth is 3, the number of faces at level 3 are used in the tessellation.
Sample Count: Specify how many times each face should be divided. Increasing this value smooths the polygonal surface.