Here is a tutorial that shows how I would create the version that has the smoother surface topology.

In this video I start with a 6-sided polygon and redraw some of the topology so that the edge flow is around and along the height of the cylinder resulting in a smoother surface.

I also show how to make a fast render setup without having to hassle with lights. Finally, as an added bonus I show how to also make a wire frame render using mental rays contour render feature.

Here is what we make:



and here is the link to the video:

hole in cyl tut2 web - YouTube

There is also a higher resolution quicktime version without audio in the same folder.

NOTES: I rushed a bit so here is a summary of the important bits to know for the contour render setup :

1. You must turn on contour render in 2 places - in the render globals/mental ray/features AND on the shader group for the material on the object itself - mental ray/contour render.

2. also remember to check draw around polygon faces just under where you turn on contour rendering in the RENDER GLOBALS section.

3. I mentioned to set the over sampling to 2 but did not mention that setting the filter type to triangle and the filter support to 2 will also help to make the lines very smooth.

I hope this helps and if people find this kind of stuff useful I will try to make more of them.

Cheers!