hello friends and thanky ou for helping me. @kurt: thx for the file - you´ve triangulated the mesh. well, the problems still exists, and I don´t want to triangulate my mesh. @brian: okay, what I did: 1. Modify-->Convert-->Polygons to Subdiv I use 40000/64, and I don´t use "Keep Original" -because, if I don´t use "keep original" it is much more smooth. 2. I´be got an error message: Error: polyToSubdiv1 (Poly To Subdiv Node): One or more edges is nonmanifold. // Nonmanifold geometry cannot be converted to a subdivision surface. // To clean up nonmanifold edges, use Polygons->Cleanup with the nonmanifold option. // 3. Polygons-->Cleanup I´ve activated Nonmanifold geometry+Normals and Geometry 4. Modify-->Convert Polys to Subdiv it worked, but it seems to be, that the mesh is now destroyed: I don´t know where the problem is !!??? Maybe there is a problem with my normals - but I don´t know exactly what it can be. The option "soften harden" with the normals works - okay, this is one point I understand, but I have the problem before with the damaged mesh. @T-Rex: Yes, that´s right Brian. My big problem is, that I modelled all my stuff before with cinema - but now I want to learn Maya - and I can see really more opportunities with maya. it´s really cool, but it takes a lot of time to learn - you know.... okay, so thanks for helping me, bye for now and take care, bernhard