Proper Topology - Basic question Maya2012

bpears

Am I able to delete these edges and still have proper topology since there will be left over verts to the right, connecting to the skinnier faces? Or will the square now be treated as if these are all new sides, and create tons of triangles on FBX export?

X's would be deleted, and O's would be kept:

bpears

just trying to understand that bit of topology logic, So I know to either let the edges stay, continuing threw the model, or if they can be deleted and Maya still realizes to treat as one edge, if the vert is in line with the edge.

Eric Chadwick

If you remove all those middle X edges, and all the vertices on the left side except the top and bottom ones, then that big area becomes one big polygon in Maya. However in reality it will be treated as a bunch of triangles. All those circled vertices will have to connect to the two top/bottom vertices. This is hidden from you most of the time, because polygons make it easier to do modeling tasks in Maya/Max/etc. But everything is really made of triangles. Also, in the end there are no polygons in a game engine, only triangles.

bpears

Thanks!

Eric Chadwick

The result would not really be bad topology, unless the hidden triangulation was done poorly. For example if the circled vertices were connected to each other by super thin triangles. So it's best to check the resulting topo before you export.