John, I think you're missing the point slightly with Nurbs, you still have textures and normal maps in the same way as you would with poly based. Polygons give you less detail than nurbs as it's straight lines joining them up, with a nurb surface you can have a bendy line. Likewise a sphere is round in the raytrace world rather than a faceted approximation in the poly world. Nurbs can be as soft as you like or hard like poly modelling.
You still have a level of detail, the more control points on a surface is like having higher polygon count.
After a quick google of Nurb Dragon I found this...
http://www.keongputer.com/tutor/texturing/NurbDragon/
I'm sure it's not the best example, but it is an example.
You still have a level of detail, the more control points on a surface is like having higher polygon count.
After a quick google of Nurb Dragon I found this...
http://www.keongputer.com/tutor/texturing/NurbDragon/
I'm sure it's not the best example, but it is an example.