Required Reading: Poles and Loops
This post by Toontje is almost 4 years old, but it does a GREAT job at explaining some of the pitfalls and fixes of incorrect geometry. Some of the images have gone missing – you can also download a full PDF version from Sandra Gilbert’s blog.
There’s also a good French translation of this brilliant post. Worth mentionning IMHO.
http://forum.zbrush.fr/index.php?PHPSESSID=332f734b99a003b5c7d28ac16ffa20b0&/topic,3499.msg38249.html
I found a lot of this stuff is kind of wrong and of little utility. Subdivisionmodelling.com seems to have gone up in flames again but in the original thread ( that I have backed up) that birthed this one most of the more informative stuff was written by a guy who used the ‘alias’ someartist most of the stuff written by toontje could be ignored as fluff. If you can go through the some kind of internet archieve you might want to look at both threads. the subdivision modeling thread was titled “The Pole” some people have it backed up as a PDF that the offer for download.
thanks a lot , that was handy :)
best regards.
This is my first post… I find blender very useful!!!, I have read that thread about six months before now, it was very very useful, but I still cant do what they do. The problem I had with that post was that they never explain exactly the “mindset” you need to really “tweak” the geometry in any case, although at first they explain some stuff like moving poles, reconnect edges and so on, I did all exercises they did and I understand them well but still when I try to make a model I get lost quickly.
If some of you understand this thinks I would appreciate if you make a tutorial or extend the existing one… I PROMISE IF YOU HELP TO UNDERSTAND THEN I WILL MAKE SOME TUTORIALS ABOUT IT AND MAKE THEM MORE UNDERSTANDABLE. Thank you.
Just google “the pole + subdivision modelling” you will find the pdf of the thread that am talking about that is far more useful than the Blender one. there is a much bigger thread on cgtalk on Topology that is also way more useful than this one http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=25&t=38469&page=1 the cgtalk thread is massive because it was started a long time ago.
A lot of the stuff in Blender thread is useless and some of it is wrong but the are some useful tidbits. If you are new to modeling you might struggle to know which is which. Like that stuff on the knife tool it all depends on what mode knife is in (inner vert or path) or whether you are cutting in a program that supports ngons, Blender couldn’t at the time but the bmesh builds do support ngons.
I can say the same thing about the “Polesless head” that kind of thing is pointless to do without using triangles and pentagons. With triangles and pentagons you can make sure the are no poles to disrupt your edgeloops as you work. Every vertex junction will have four edges. To use pentagons you again need ngons.
Try and also look at some of the stuff guys like Glen Southern do He does a lot of nice beginner box modelling tutorials, the are not Blender specific but you can follow along.
Hello, thank you very much!, im watching those reference you pointed out… I´ll finish them and I´ll see if that works. Thanks
One specific thing worth pointing out: It’s not ‘correct’ to model diagonal topology for neck muscles (for instance). These muscles do not stick to the skin, but slide underneath it, so if you want to do realistic rigging and motion, better not cut the muscle flow there into the topology…. then you have the pain (in blender) of how to make skin sliding work ;)
Are you referring to Nick Zuccarello’s generic head model?
This kind of tutorials never lose its importance, so thank you.
And thank you for all the links you give in the comments
@fred: most of the stuff you mentioned is to be found on the blog with the original post. There is a list of categories ob the right hand side. Actually the whole site is dedicated to sub-d modeling resources
I have learnt allot from this. about 2 years ago. A great post.
I’ve seen this before, and it helped me completely change how I make my meshes.
I have to agree bait with Fred. The fact that people think about these things is great but there are more than a few inaccuracies. Especially spirals being more professional and organic is a disastrous advice as it makes meshes unmaintainable…
I can’t view the blog. It’s only open to invited members! I really want to read that material. Any help?