Animation Topology

Starkist

Hi there folks,

I'm currently working on a base mesh for humanoid characters, and I want to set it up with optimal topology for animation.

I set a goal of ~30k tris as a limit for a character, this base mesh at the moment is ~4.7k.

I want to get some crits & tips to improve it. I believe I can shove more tris since I'm rather far from my limit.

Also, I looked @ this vid from "The Last of Us": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myZcUvU8YWc

They show rather interesting rigs and tricks, and I see they use a lot of bones.
I wonder how much bones should I limit myself to.

Any tips are welcome, thanks!








Thanks folks!

skodone

why did you pose the arms at 90° angle?

and im no pro but i always got told to definitely avoid triangles at the bentding areas

MattyWS

skodone wrote: »

and im no pro but i always got told to definitely avoid triangles at the bentding areas

Why? For joints especially, tris can be used for wedging. Like the elbow would have more polys than the inside of the arm (opposite side of the elbow?) and you'd need tris to achieve that.

That said I'm not primarily a rigger or animator either.

EDIT: I made sure by looking it up after I posted, there's no set rule but this explains things rather well I think.

Wolthera

uhm... doesn't that image tell you that the last example is what to avoid?

MattyWS

It's an extreme example of what not to do, the best example still has tri's though.

Starkist

As Matty said, the triangles seem to be the best solution with less improper deformation. The arms are @ 90 deg because afaik, it's best to start rigging with a relaxed pose - joints in a position between the min and max angles.

skodone

well one never stops learning
funny thing is when people always tell you this and then someone
else comes over and tells you that...

MattyWS

skodone wrote: »

well one never stops learning
funny thing is when people always tell you this and then someone
else comes over and tells you that...

I make it a habit to do my own research into something, I have a bit of an OCD about it actually.. Can't just take someone else's word for it unless there's a good reason.

I actually hate when someone says to do something because they say their lecturer told them they had to or something else like that. My lead artist does that sometimes.

skodone

yeah thing was i just like copied someone elses speech without further investigatinv which is totally not the right way to go... will avoid that in the future...

carlobarley

hey starkist, i would suggest reading up and watching the stuff in here, http://hippydrome.com/

Starkist

@carlobarley, wow, this looks very useful. gonna dive into that, thanks a lot man!!

elec²ron

Hey guys. The example above shows collapsing and non-collapsing geometry. For low poly work sometimes you want the geometry to collapse on itself and other times you dont, you can control it with the type of edges you use at the joint.

As you go higher poly you dont want collapsing geometry. You would spend more time on the rig and look to create naturally deforming loops around bending areas.

jfeez

Hippydrome is the best example out there hands down. You want to concentrate on keeping loops that follow how the skin moves/flows with the bodies movement. Try to avoid poles in key area(for example the one you have in the butt) but if u need tris/wierd loops for silhouette its probably going to be fine.

The pose you choose is just as important imo, you want the character to generally be relaxed, more towards an A pose than a T. This just helps hold form easier as the joints are in a more neutral position, it helps keep form if the model has a slight bend in the arm as there will be less volume loss when animated to extremes. Having extremes like you have in the elbow means its probably gonna suck when the arm gets straight

JamesFSky

Great idea for a post, Starkist! It's very helpful to see what other people have to say, especially for a noob to 3D such as myself. That being said, if anybody knows anything about animation topology (resources, tips, tutorials, anything!), I'd love if you shared! I'm a nurse trying to get into animation, but I'm worried that I'm creating my character topology all wrong (again, fairly new to 3D modeling), so if anybody has any tips...