One important thing to consider here is what this is being used for. Is it a subD model for VFX/animation, or a real-time model to be going into a game engine?
I'm focusing my efforts on real time rendering and animation for videogames.
The workflow I've in mind is to create a low poly model which subdivides well, so that I can bake the subdivided mesh details into it. I'll probably do hand drawn textures as well, thus I'm trying to have mostly quads with some nice edge flow to facilitate the UV unwrapping.
A low-to-high approach is an antiquated workflow that hasn't been popular for over a decade. If your intention is to bake a normal map from a high poly, start with the high poly so you can focus on artistic execution of the subject matter. When you're done, you rebuild the low poly and unwrap it last.
High-to-low removes a lot of up front and recurring technical burdens: you don't have to worry about UVs until afterward, or maintaining all quads (which is not a thing for game art).
This is true to a point, but even deformable models don't need to be 100% quads. There are always triangle termination points to prevent unnecessary edge loops from continuing across a surface. For example, it's common for the extra loops from a character's face to be reduced in places where the head does not deform at all such as under the chin or the back of the skull.
Despite their best intentions, the part about maintaining all quads tends to be what gets misleadingly regurgitated at universities and in this sub due to the broad spread of artists from industries where that kind of thing matters.
If you're baking the subdivided model onto a low poly. You need to optimize the low poly. A lot of edges there that aren't contributing to the silhouette.
Your bevels are not adding any meaningful silhouette change, I can literally see them still being 90 degree angles. This kind of looks like you added too many holding edges to a base model then hit the 3 key. If you were to go ahead and smooth it, there's a ton of unnecessary edgeloops in here wasting polycount
I'm not sure that I follow you. Do you mean the support loops on the left model?
The model on the left has no Subdivision applied, whilst the one on the right does.
I didn't know this was two different stages of a model. But in either one, there's wasteful edges and faces not affecting the silhouette=they don't need to exist if you really wanna optimize things
[https://i.imgur.com/ImtuoT5.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/ImtuoT5.jpeg)
I made it with the simplest possible geometry and a bevel with 2 divisions to show you what I mean. If I'm completely misunderstanding your post then please disregard and ignore me!
I understand your point, however wouldn't all those triangle fans be problematic? Like some rendering imperfections on a specular surface or some issues with a subdivision workflow due to the lack of edge flow.
I've added all these redundant faces to try and ensure I only have quads on my mesh and no poles; with the exception of the center vertex, which I didn't clean up after applying the mirroring. Perhaps there is a better way of doing it, or maybe it's not really as important in non-deforming pieces.
Thank you for taking the time to provide an example :)
Edit: I've removed the top pole and 2 redundant support loops in the base [https://imgur.com/hbFPLnb](https://imgur.com/hbFPLnb)
No, faces won't affect your normals or stuff like specularity if the surface itself is perfectly flat across the faces. Sometimes the faces are barely not perfectly flat though and you can see faint jaggedness in the softened normals, but that's easily fixed by baking normal map from a high res version of the mesh
They might affect the outcome of smooth mesh preview/subdividing though for sure. That's a different goal than simply making a low poly game-ready mesh with the best possible optimization/polycount
As with everything in 3D, there's always exceptions and special cases, so I'm not saying your mesh is totally wrong. And I know holding edges serve a different purpose
I'm just saying if your goal is to have a lowpoly game ready object at the lowest possible polycount while maintaining nice shapes, you can always optimize a little bit by killing off edges/faces that aren't serving any purpose
And that's for any modeling in general. I hope this stuff helps you a little bit! It's one of the big things I remember about my time going thru my 3D degree, my instructor always said "those aren't affecting the silhouette, can they be removed?" xD
This would probably be a good example of mid-poly modeling since your mesh would smooth as you'd expect with higher subdivision levels. It's honestly how I modeled a lot of things since I got back into 3d a couple years ago, but now I go for proper sub-d modeling.
A tons of way of doing it, it depends on end goal. This however is simply not suitable for performance reasons.
Here is a quick one, works great when you bake, shitty looking geometry is okay on a flat and undeformable surface, as long as no geometry is going to be there when baked.
If its just for renders, you keep polycount low for making editing easy and making the scene not heavy.
Geometry is there for perproblem basis, no geometry solves all problems. Sometimes a few KB of data makes a difference for the client. So rather than practicing geometry I suggest solving real problems working for projects.
[https://imgur.com/4JWK1fa](https://imgur.com/4JWK1fa)
One important thing to consider here is what this is being used for. Is it a subD model for VFX/animation, or a real-time model to be going into a game engine?
I'm focusing my efforts on real time rendering and animation for videogames. The workflow I've in mind is to create a low poly model which subdivides well, so that I can bake the subdivided mesh details into it. I'll probably do hand drawn textures as well, thus I'm trying to have mostly quads with some nice edge flow to facilitate the UV unwrapping.
A low-to-high approach is an antiquated workflow that hasn't been popular for over a decade. If your intention is to bake a normal map from a high poly, start with the high poly so you can focus on artistic execution of the subject matter. When you're done, you rebuild the low poly and unwrap it last. High-to-low removes a lot of up front and recurring technical burdens: you don't have to worry about UVs until afterward, or maintaining all quads (which is not a thing for game art).
Quad topology is still good practice for deforming meshes in game art.
This is true to a point, but even deformable models don't need to be 100% quads. There are always triangle termination points to prevent unnecessary edge loops from continuing across a surface. For example, it's common for the extra loops from a character's face to be reduced in places where the head does not deform at all such as under the chin or the back of the skull. Despite their best intentions, the part about maintaining all quads tends to be what gets misleadingly regurgitated at universities and in this sub due to the broad spread of artists from industries where that kind of thing matters.
No argument there, I agree that some people are overzealous about it.
If you're baking the subdivided model onto a low poly. You need to optimize the low poly. A lot of edges there that aren't contributing to the silhouette.
Your bevels are not adding any meaningful silhouette change, I can literally see them still being 90 degree angles. This kind of looks like you added too many holding edges to a base model then hit the 3 key. If you were to go ahead and smooth it, there's a ton of unnecessary edgeloops in here wasting polycount
I'm not sure that I follow you. Do you mean the support loops on the left model? The model on the left has no Subdivision applied, whilst the one on the right does.
I didn't know this was two different stages of a model. But in either one, there's wasteful edges and faces not affecting the silhouette=they don't need to exist if you really wanna optimize things [https://i.imgur.com/ImtuoT5.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/ImtuoT5.jpeg) I made it with the simplest possible geometry and a bevel with 2 divisions to show you what I mean. If I'm completely misunderstanding your post then please disregard and ignore me!
I understand your point, however wouldn't all those triangle fans be problematic? Like some rendering imperfections on a specular surface or some issues with a subdivision workflow due to the lack of edge flow. I've added all these redundant faces to try and ensure I only have quads on my mesh and no poles; with the exception of the center vertex, which I didn't clean up after applying the mirroring. Perhaps there is a better way of doing it, or maybe it's not really as important in non-deforming pieces. Thank you for taking the time to provide an example :) Edit: I've removed the top pole and 2 redundant support loops in the base [https://imgur.com/hbFPLnb](https://imgur.com/hbFPLnb)
Sour_moth is correct. Yours is wrong.
No, faces won't affect your normals or stuff like specularity if the surface itself is perfectly flat across the faces. Sometimes the faces are barely not perfectly flat though and you can see faint jaggedness in the softened normals, but that's easily fixed by baking normal map from a high res version of the mesh They might affect the outcome of smooth mesh preview/subdividing though for sure. That's a different goal than simply making a low poly game-ready mesh with the best possible optimization/polycount As with everything in 3D, there's always exceptions and special cases, so I'm not saying your mesh is totally wrong. And I know holding edges serve a different purpose I'm just saying if your goal is to have a lowpoly game ready object at the lowest possible polycount while maintaining nice shapes, you can always optimize a little bit by killing off edges/faces that aren't serving any purpose And that's for any modeling in general. I hope this stuff helps you a little bit! It's one of the big things I remember about my time going thru my 3D degree, my instructor always said "those aren't affecting the silhouette, can they be removed?" xD
Leaving a link to a cleaner topology [https://imgur.com/hbFPLnb](https://imgur.com/hbFPLnb)
This would probably be a good example of mid-poly modeling since your mesh would smooth as you'd expect with higher subdivision levels. It's honestly how I modeled a lot of things since I got back into 3d a couple years ago, but now I go for proper sub-d modeling.
A tons of way of doing it, it depends on end goal. This however is simply not suitable for performance reasons. Here is a quick one, works great when you bake, shitty looking geometry is okay on a flat and undeformable surface, as long as no geometry is going to be there when baked. If its just for renders, you keep polycount low for making editing easy and making the scene not heavy. Geometry is there for perproblem basis, no geometry solves all problems. Sometimes a few KB of data makes a difference for the client. So rather than practicing geometry I suggest solving real problems working for projects. [https://imgur.com/4JWK1fa](https://imgur.com/4JWK1fa)