Topology - 'ending' an edge - Simply Maya User Community

# 1 24-11-2011 , 06:59 AM

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Topology - 'ending' an edge

This is my first attempt at a character model and I'm lost when it comes to topology...

1) Is there a correct way to 'end' an edge if I don't want it to go all the way around the mesh? (e.g the temple area)?

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2) What is the easiest way to connect the hat to the head? I was just gonna combine the meshes and merge vertices, but.. the hat has 6 edges and the head 18. Now is there a way to reduce the number of the edges on top of the head instead of adding edges to the hat?

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Thanks!

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# 2 24-11-2011 , 09:12 AM

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Try this way its a reversed extrude...........dave

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# 3 24-11-2011 , 01:40 PM

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Not to try and sell you something but if your in the mood check this out

https://simplymaya.com/autodesk-maya-...=193&sub_cat=2

Jay the guy that made it has been a senior artist at some of the largest studios in the industry following his workflow for organic modeling will save you a ton of time. He also has bloody good topology.

Best of luck with your project.
Dave

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# 4 24-11-2011 , 04:02 PM

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Here is a possible solution.

Caveat:

There are many ways to quadrangulate this topology and I am not saying these are the best solutions Jay or one of the other guys that have done more organic modeling then me would be a better resource. I am sure, Jay's alien surfer dude tut would cover this kind of stuff very well.

In the top one I assumed you just could not tolerate an edge running around the front of the mesh so I routed it around the back and did a 3-into-1 reduction.

In the bottom on the top of the head I used daverave's suggestion and then redraw the rest.

On the bottom of the hat I just dont know what to say but the topology (because of perspective probably) looked completely insane. So I just removed it all and drew in the single edge to make 2 quads (top right) and in the main one I just did a extrude w/offset and the same split down the middle.

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Last edited by ctbram; 24-11-2011 at 11:37 PM.

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# 5 28-11-2011 , 11:16 PM

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Thanks for the suggestions. It took me a while to wrap my head around it but in the end I was able to build the character from quads, with only 2 or 3 exceptions. I looked at the alien tutorial but the character seemed way to advance for me at this point. I'll do one or two more low-poly characters before moving on the aline.. Anyways.. I got my character finished.

user added image

I'm pretty happy with the result, ended up under 2000 tris. I don't plan to smooth him (subdiv proxy + crease tool), but I did just to test the geometry and everything works fine, everything but the mouth. Every other edge got rounded but the mouth keeps its original edges. Any idea why?

user added image

Last edited by nov2011; 28-11-2011 at 11:26 PM.

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# 6 28-11-2011 , 11:53 PM

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Thanks for the suggestions. It took me a while to wrap my head around it but in the end I was able to build the character from quads, with only 2 or 3 exceptions. I looked at the alien tutorial but the character seemed way to advance for me at this point. I'll do one or two more low-poly characters before moving on the aline.. Anyways.. I got my character finished.

I'm pretty happy with the result, ended up under 2000 tris. I don't plan to smooth him (subdiv proxy + crease tool), but I did just to test the geometry and everything works fine, everything but the mouth. Every other edge got rounded but the mouth keeps its original edges. Any idea why?

Originally Posted by nov2011

Anything ticked under Preserve? Might be either one of those 2, if not the problem's with the mesh.

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Last edited by SilverFeather; 28-11-2011 at 11:57 PM.

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# 7 29-11-2011 , 12:33 AM

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You're right, it was the mesh. The normals on the bottom of the lip were reversed. I have it set up so that all reversed normals always display black (two-sided-lightning off).. but somehow i took the darker color in that area for a shadow...

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# 8 29-11-2011 , 01:06 AM

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I think he looks kinda cool all angular

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

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# 9 29-11-2011 , 03:39 PM

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thanks, i'll leave him like that. I just did the smoothing to check for mistakes.

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# 10 05-12-2011 , 04:21 AM

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I thought I post it here instead of creating new thread as it deals with a similar problem..

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The bottom part of the shirt (the 'skirt' part) doesn't smooth properly when using subdiv proxy.

It looks good in the preview, but once I do the actual subdivision it keeps the original hard edges. The edges around the 'skirt' can't be changed to soft edges for some reason.

The skirt was created by taking an edge of the body and extruding it outward..

Do you guys have any idea what's wrong with the mesh?
(p.s.: I checked the normals and they're all correct)

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# 11 05-12-2011 , 05:31 AM

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Turn keep border and keep selection border off in the polysmooth node. In your case only keep border is causing the problem but I tend to turn both of these off and then only turn them on when needed. Why maya make them on by default baffles me as 99.9% of the time you want them off.

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