Topology for Low Poly - Vertex Poles

Evidale

Hey all,

Currently working on a project for my portfolio. I'm trying to understand the potential cons of heavy vertex poles, and how far should you really push them.

If anyone can shed some light on their general guidelines, I'd really appreciate it. I've attached what I'm looking at right now.

m4dcow

If it doesn't deform it probably doesn't matter. I would personally have each vert connect to it's counterpart on the other side to form quads (unless the UVs are to be mirrored).

sacboi

Are the poles pinching that curved edged cut, with subdiv applied?
( ..which I usually perform for mesh verification, whether low or high res)

...because typically when terminated on a control edge, (...via image) distorsion occures.

FourtyNights

For the low poly, there's also an option to use "face weighted vertex normals" to ease the shading like this. To get this to work, you need to bevel the edges at least once around harder corners:

FWN = Off

FWN= On

RacePeaceDay

Do like this (the 2nd variant)

https://sarpersoher.com/images/unity3d/quad_vs_tight.jpg

to reduce quad overdraw and potential bake problems.

Evidale

sacboi said:

Are the poles pinching that curved edged cut, with subdiv applied?
( ..which I usually perform for mesh verification, whether low or high res)

...because typically when terminated on a control edge, (...via image) distorsion occures.

I've already done my high-poly and was just going through and looking for areas to optimize on the low. The edges are marked hard and the uvs are split around the hole, so there isn't shading issues, bakes turn out clean. I was curious of the performance difference between tri-stripping and tri-fanning, and how relevant it actually is. I was able to find some posts across the forum about it, and it's seeming potentially negligible.

I tried a variant with a bit of a mix. Shading is the same on the old and new. Only about 60 more tris than the original. The support edges around the outside of the uke are mostly for texturing purposes, as I cut those out to a seperate shell, and straighted for a cleaner edge texture (shown below, a rough texture pass for checking areas).

Evidale

RacePeaceDay said:

Do like this (the 2nd variant)

https://sarpersoher.com/images/unity3d/quad_vs_tight.jpg

to reduce quad overdraw and potential bake problems.

I'd seen quad over-draw mentioned in some places, I'll try and do some reading to understand it better.