Maintaining quads / adding geometry for more detail question
 

Hi,

I'm in the process of modeling a head and am trying to maintain quads. I'm finding this a little difficult.

On the image of the eye below, you can see how I've tried to build quads on the outer edge of the eye, though it is not succesful. I am still wondering how to do it on the inside edge of the eye. I could create new edge loops all the way around but would like to avoid this.

Are there any techniques anyone could recommend for maintaining quads, especially between areas of greater and less detail? I guess it is common to have detailed areas, and not have all the line on them be edge loops around the whole object.

Thanks in advance,

gubar.

Well there is no magic trick and how to mantain quads is something you learn by experience. I personally prefer sacrificing a few quads instead of excessive use of loops.

I recomend that you look at other peoples topology, copy then after a while you learn how to more succesfully make quads.

Good luck. :)

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, going to start looking at other people's meshs. I'm sure I seen a guide once a while ago, can't remember where, that gave techniques on how to break meshs down into more detail but still maintain quads, without adding edge loops.

If I can dig it out I'll post it's name/link up here.

cheers,

gubar.

Why try to maintain quads?

Sure they smooth better than triangles and n-sideds... but it will smooth a lot worse if the vertexes aren't even in the right places.

If you need to make triangles to get proper topology... do it IMO. Topology is the only thing people sees, not wireframe.

Its like the old polycount adage -- what's the better sphere? A 60-poly sphere, or a 500-poly banana...?

Hi,

that was my initial thought. It's just that I've read some tutorials that stress the importance of this. I have found some info re how to maintain quads without adding too much extra geometry - I'll try and post up some images later.

thanks,

gubar.

Tri's vs quads is a topic for half a book. I recommend reading up on boxmodeling, face loops, and pole's. Get as much hands-on modeling experience as you can. It does get easier and easier in my humble oppinion.

Here's some quick examples when you should avoid tri's:
If you want to take the model into ZBrush.

If you plan to animate the character (tri's can be used but best be hidden in areas that does not deform and preferrably where it's not seen (inside nose, mouth, eye sockets)

Triangles can create uggly pole's on a mesh, but does not necessarily have to. Most game models are triangulated etc. This is another several chapters long topic.

If you are planning to convert the model into different formats, or go between nurbs,poly's, sub-divisions).
Again with reservation. Some convertions works just fine with tri's.


When to use tri's:
If it's a still image and it's not visible in the result, use as many tri's you want.

If the faces they make up are somewhat planar and does not deform at all.

If they are temporary geometry that you will later fix. There's no reason to keep a triangle that could be made into a quad, but they can be useful in the modeling process temporarily. Many prefer to kill the last 3-4 tri's at the end of the modeling stage when all geometry and loops are in place, and you have the flow that you want. Again if it's not easy to kill, hide it if you can.


Here's a way you can go from areas of higher resolution (more faces) to a lower resolution.

and here's a technique to kill triangles (there are many): The T-split.

Thanks Alphaflyte,

the last one you show - the T-Split - is the one that I had read about. I hadn't seen the first one before, so thanks for sharing it.

I'm having trouble mirroring/duplicating geometry and am going to start a new thread - if you can help there that would be great too.

thanks again,

gubar

By the way, the T-split looks weird in Zbrush. :p

Heres another easier way to kill triangles ...

Merge the two vertices which are marked red

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/4946/73872973yi3.jpghttp://img484.imageshack.us/img484/7837/22583655ky3.jpg

This is all really good stuff to know, and I was surprised that there was not a thread like this already. The more different ways I can see of doing this, the better.

cheers,

gubar