Curve "planar" only extrudes the outline...

Hello, I’m following a simple tutorial on how to make a planar mesh (I assume that’s how it’s called in Blender, although the presenter just calls it an extrusion) from a closed curve. I’ve got the curve, but when I extrude…

http://thepostfuturist.com/forums/curve.jpg

…just the edges extrude and not the space within. What am I doing wrong?

Are you in wireframe view ?

Hi, I am, but what difference does it make?

Wireframe, as its name implies only shows the wireframe, whether you have faces there or not. In solid view, if you have faces they’ll show up, if you don’t they won’t. If they show, your problem will have been solved.

I checked both (wire/shaded), but it only shows it in object mode as I see. Thank you. Another question if at all possible - in Maya, when converting from NURBS to polys, you can retain a curve in order to manipulate a planar shape in a 3D object - in my case, a saddle. However, when I choose the convert to tool, I don’t see parameters to as to how the polygons will be distributed.

http://thepostfuturist.com/forums/saddle.jpg

the default conversion is obviously undesirable.

In your first example, as far as I can see, there simply isn’t a “surface within”. So you need to create that before extruding.
In your second example, you need to set the preview resolution to something reasonable before you Alt+C convert.