Converting Quads/Ngons to Tris

mobkon

Hey guys -

So I have my mesh I've created in Maya out of 99% quads and a very small amount of ngons that I haven't bothered to fix due to the fact that I want to triangulate everything anyway. But once I triangulate my mesh, I get some weird creasing in areas. Going around the mesh and selecting some edges and softening the normals works in some areas, but not others. Areas that used to be fine now have weird lines and creases due to converting to tris.

Is this a common problem? What am I doing wrong? I've never really modeled in tris, usually always quads so this modeling for gaming is new to me. Is my initial workflow incorrect? :poly122:

BARDLER

Well some pictures would help first off. Second, you don't model in triangles because it would be super annoying to use any proper polygon tools on a triangulated mesh. The general workflow is make the highpoly where the topology doesn't matter as long as it smooths properly, make the lowpoly during or after the highpoly, then UV the lowpoly, set your smoothing groups, lock your normals(maya), triangulate your lowpoly, and then bake your maps.

mobkon

Let me rephrase that...yes Im aware you dont model in tris, I meant I've never converted my mesh to tris before for any purpose. Modeling in tris would be...painstaking!

I did a hard surface model of a robot and I approached it by saying Im not going to smooth anything (not sure if that was the correct choice or not?), rather use bevels for the edges since I wanted it to be low poly to begin with. But when I convert to tris, the mesh gets a little busy with lots of little tris in places etc.

I can post a screenshot later after work if that will help.

Mark Dygert

In Maya choose the option box for Edit Mesh > Add Divisions.
The Add Divisions to Face options window appears.
Set the Mode to Triangles, and click Apply.


In max apply the "turn to poly" modifier and set the number of sides to 3.
This is handy because you can delete the modifier and it goes back to being quads. Or leave it at the top of your stack and work underneath turning it on only when you need it.

I think the FBX exporter also has a "triangulate" setting, that you can check on, which is nice if you need your mesh triangulated as it's leaving your app. That way you can keep working in quads.