How much does "clean topology" matters on lowpoly?
polycounter lvl 7
Hi!
While working on my recent project, I begin to wonder, does "clean" topology matters at all if it's a low-poly asset that uses normal maps?
For example:
This small stone pillar - I just exported decimated mesh from zbrush and cleaned it up to avoid extreme triangles and other artefacts. In the end it turned out even less triangles than when I tried to manually quad draw a lowpoly on highpoly.
After uv-unwrapping it and and baking normals, everything looked perfect.
Edge loops are cool and all... but does it matter at all in cases like this? Is there a drawback in making lowpolys like this?
Replies
Clean topology for low poly, can save you a shitload of time when Unwrapping. Bakes usually turn out better. Also the piece you are showing is not that bad. But a lot of useless edges that can be simplified. It's a good practice to make it good. In case another person takes it over to UW or texture it.
Yeah, that's what mostly bothers me. On one hand - this works great... Was easy to unwrap, no issues with seams, faster than quad draw. On the other hand, someone else would look at it like "what the hell is this?!" :D
Another reason I wanted to try this is because it keeps the profile of the geometry and looks good when just walking around the model on the scene. Trying to keep the profile with all the small dents and cavities. is a pain in the ass to do with "clean" topo and edge loops and stuff. At least in my experience.
That's basically fine.
I'd trim out some of the smaller faces but only cos it doesn't look like they have any real effect .
Yeah, I'll do a better job next time :)
I'm just too lazy to quad draw, and cleaned up decimated mesh from zbrush seems like a fast and easy way to go :D