Home Technical Talk

Modeling with Quads for Game Asset?

Bozurk
polycounter lvl 2
Offline / Send Message
Pinned
Bozurk polycounter lvl 2
Hello, everyone I'm fairly new here and I'm currently learning about Game Asset creation using Blender, as well as game art overall.
I wanted to know if it is "Mandatory" to model a game asset with Quads and then triangulate it after the fact.

Because I'm working with a lot of Ngons when modeling a sci-fi weapon game asset or similar. (Something really complex to deal with quads) I'm using Blender as my go-to tool for modeling, And I'm using Hard-Ops and BoxCutter (That's a paid Add-On/Script) which involves a lot of Ngons because It's a complete boolean workflow for hard surface. I've been told to model a game asset with quads because it would triangulate much better, however, That's not the case with some artists as they can just triangulate the Ngons after they finish working with the game asset.

I wanted to know if it matters that I model with Quads or Not. Because I'm heavily relying on a Boolean workflow for my designs.

Thank you!  :)

- Yousef

Replies

  • Ghogiel
    Offline / Send Message
    Ghogiel greentooth
    Depends what's happening in your scene.

    Just becareful, it's not hard or problematic once you know what to look out for to work with boolean workflows, and you'll be fine.  As long as the triangulation isn't really bad on the low poly (lots of long thin acute angled tris etc) shouldn't have too many issues. Any highpoly stuff usually matters even less as long as the surface is shading correctly, that's 99% of the time all you want out the mesh for hardsurface highpolys that get baked to a low poly.

    But if your low poly triangulation is a bit gank, you might not get the best results in game. Some issues arise due to mips, baking, and also during rasterisation.
  • Bozurk
    Offline / Send Message
    Bozurk polycounter lvl 2
    Ghogiel said:
    Depends what's happening in your scene.

    Just becareful, it's not hard or problematic once you know what to look out for to work with boolean workflows, and you'll be fine.  As long as the triangulation isn't really bad on the low poly (lots of long thin acute angled tris etc) shouldn't have too many issues. Any highpoly stuff usually matters even less as long as the surface is shading correctly, that's 99% of the time all you want out the mesh for hardsurface highpolys that get baked to a low poly.

    But if your low poly triangulation is a bit gank, you might not get the best results in game. Some issues arise due to mips, baking, and also during rasterisation.
    Thank you very much! I'll keep that noted. One more thing, What about modeling with Quads and then Sub-D for Baking? I was told Sub-D isn't recommended if I want to make a high poly version of the asset. Because the Rays wouldn't capture the angles very nicely as supposed with the bevels or bevel modifiers.
  • Ghogiel
    Offline / Send Message
    Ghogiel greentooth
    Bozurk said:
    Ghogiel said:
    Depends what's happening in your scene.

    Just becareful, it's not hard or problematic once you know what to look out for to work with boolean workflows, and you'll be fine.  As long as the triangulation isn't really bad on the low poly (lots of long thin acute angled tris etc) shouldn't have too many issues. Any highpoly stuff usually matters even less as long as the surface is shading correctly, that's 99% of the time all you want out the mesh for hardsurface highpolys that get baked to a low poly.

    But if your low poly triangulation is a bit gank, you might not get the best results in game. Some issues arise due to mips, baking, and also during rasterisation.
    Thank you very much! I'll keep that noted. One more thing, What about modeling with Quads and then Sub-D for Baking? I was told Sub-D isn't recommended if I want to make a high poly version of the asset. Because the Rays wouldn't capture the angles very nicely as supposed with the bevels or bevel modifiers.
    SubD you have just as much control over how the edge highlights will appear in the baked normal as only using bevel modifiers will, thousands of amazing hard surface modellers and models for games are done in subD. So I'm not quite sure what is being said there and must be contextual to the object you are making and not as a general rule.

    Usually people will mix the 2 approaches, even on a single asset, it all depends on the surface anyway. If it's all hard angles like a book shelf might be, you might just go and make the high poly with bevels and that's fine. If there are curved surfaces, you might get a better result subD.  Each have uses and purposes, and both can bake without issues.

  • Bozurk
    Offline / Send Message
    Bozurk polycounter lvl 2
    Ghogiel said:
    Bozurk said:
    Ghogiel said:
    Depends what's happening in your scene.

    Just becareful, it's not hard or problematic once you know what to look out for to work with boolean workflows, and you'll be fine.  As long as the triangulation isn't really bad on the low poly (lots of long thin acute angled tris etc) shouldn't have too many issues. Any highpoly stuff usually matters even less as long as the surface is shading correctly, that's 99% of the time all you want out the mesh for hardsurface highpolys that get baked to a low poly.

    But if your low poly triangulation is a bit gank, you might not get the best results in game. Some issues arise due to mips, baking, and also during rasterisation.
    Thank you very much! I'll keep that noted. One more thing, What about modeling with Quads and then Sub-D for Baking? I was told Sub-D isn't recommended if I want to make a high poly version of the asset. Because the Rays wouldn't capture the angles very nicely as supposed with the bevels or bevel modifiers.
    SubD you have just as much control over how the edge highlights will appear in the baked normal as only using bevel modifiers will, thousands of amazing hard surface modellers and models for games are done in subD. So I'm not quite sure what is being said there and must be contextual to the object you are making and not as a general rule.

    Usually people will mix the 2 approaches, even on a single asset, it all depends on the surface anyway. If it's all hard angles like a book shelf might be, you might just go and make the high poly with bevels and that's fine. If there are curved surfaces, you might get a better result subD.  Each have uses and purposes, and both can bake without issues.

    Noted! Thank you very much, It was helpful to know all about this. Because I really do love modeling with Sub-D. For example, It's very easy to create a pistol grip's curvature shape using Sub-D than just bevels. Also one more thing, (Is it important to mark the (Sharp Edges) as "Sharp"  when creating a high poly with Sub-D? Or just using the proximity loops / or edge creasing helps? For baking the normals.
  • sacboi
    Offline / Send Message
    sacboi high dynamic range
    I wanted to know if it is "Mandatory" to model a game asset with Quads and then triangulate it after the fact.
    In my opinion, it depends.

    Therein, for control it's usual best practice triangulating prior to render/baking down your HP both primary and tertiary details too the low, mainly due to differing mesh data processing between IDEs. However implementing boolean operands, if your topic context is further individual hard surface game asset workflow optimisation, then sure, certainly a additional modeling technique entirely worthwhile pursuing.

    On a side note, I've been following Chipp Walters work on NITROX3D for designers over at BA, a native non destructive methodology solely leveraging Blender's modifier stack with from my perspective, eye-opening results thus far, denoting flexible attributes not typically associated with a conventional sub-division paradigm that otherwise demonstrates their intrinsic procedural versatility.

    Which in turn, I'd strongly recommend reviewing this discussion:


    The author outlines a fairly straightforward approach, generating assets via a standard pro-boolean sub mesh operand process, and likewise relatively remains live/non destructive alongside supplemental work inside ZB, as well plus additionally I suppose a workflow that should be transferable into whatever DCC app of choice.

    Whilst as one previously reliant upon traditional modeling over a number of years, personally was a disruptive moment, hence forth.
  • Ghogiel
    Offline / Send Message
    Ghogiel greentooth
    Bozurk said:
    Also one more thing, (Is it important to mark the (Sharp Edges) as "Sharp"  when creating a high poly with Sub-D? Or just using the proximity loops / or edge creasing helps? For baking the normals.
    There aren't many useful reasons to mark anything as sharp on the high poly. You might do so to take advantage of things like separating smoothing groups in Max's turbosmooth. Which will use hard edges to act like support loops to hold a shape together when you subD it, but you would probably be adding a bevel, or more loops and subDing further. At the end of the day subD models basically are smooth shaded and it's the carefully crafted geo and the smoothing that takes care of the surface shading. sharp edges are basiclly visual hacks that are used when the geometry doesn't shade well, but a major point of subD modelling is the excellent surface shading result.

Sign In or Register to comment.