when to group and when to merge objects
 

when should you merge objects/verts and when should you just group them?

im looking for instances and reasons. i have to think that it's much easier to group than to merge. so what's the reason for doing one and not the other?

When you want a complete mesh for texturing (and if the object your modeling is one complete surface) then merge, if its a collection of parts then group, for example a guitar is a collection of parts, body, neck, pickups, dials, strings etc etc, so I would model the each part sepperatly amd then group them. but I would keep the bodfy as one mesh )i.e not have the front of the guitar sepperate to the sides and the back of the body.

Another example would be a head, I would keep the face as one mesh and then have the eyes grouped to the head, then you can texture and animate them sepperatly (pretty obvious in this case).


hope this makes sense.

I just flip a coin.

Well the key thing is if you want to treat each part independently then group. As above a body with eyes, you would just group them so that as you move the group about, all the bits follow along. If you have something like a wooden door made of numerous planks, then I would merge them, since I am going to want to treat them all in the same sort of way and they'll never move independently of one another. If you want to apply different shaders to different parts, then group, so if there are nails in the door, I want them to look metallic but the door to be wood, then I group the nails and the wooden parts.