Reply To: Topology help
It’s not about the mess, it’s about the shapes.
Clean topology is more an OCD thing, however all quads is the aim. Ngons will cause issues later on such a curved surface.
Tri’s are not so bad as the hype suggests. However, limited to only where necessary to maintain the desired shape.
Snapping to the surface of the high poly model will help with the shape.
Tight spacing of edges will create unwanted artifacts, as will wide spacing when texturing.
My rule of thumb is to keep quads as evenly sized and as square as possible across the entire mesh.
If I then need to lower the poly count, I will start removing edge loops that do not, or as little as possible, change the silhouette.
Then I will do some edge sliding to even out where needed, and to satisfy my modelers OCD.
The number of vertices is dependent on the use.
If it is a single model, purely for your own practice and renders, then poly count is only dependent on your computer power, and OCD of course.
Creating a larger scene, the number of assets in the final scene would also need to be considered and a lower poly count per model achieved respectively.
For an asset in a game, a poly count budget will usually be agreed prior to the modeler starting the model. The decisions on what to include or discard in each scene will have been made during pre-production. The budget can vary depending on the type of game.
Don’t worry about the number of vertices, or messy topology while learning, try and focus on matching the shape and silhouette with all quad topology.
Everything else will come with experience.
Example:
A cube is still a cube regardless of the number of vertices and how messy the topology…
