How to flow from high to low edge loop amount on a subdivided mesh?
triangle
I want to have more edge loops in some areas, while having less in other areas.
How to you go about that while maintaining good topology?
For example, here is a car I'm modeling. I only need to have about 5 edge loops for the hood, but I want more for the fender.
The font of the car also requires alo't of edge loops, but I don't want them to perpetuate throughout the rest of the vehicle.
My solution for now is just to merge edge loops into triangles. But I heard your suppose to avoid that..
Replies
Triangles are fine, so long as it gets terminated on a flat/planar area of your model. Same with n-gons. Try it out and see how it sub-divides, you'll find your answer. Experiment.
The trick with organic/curved surfaces, such as vehicles, is evenly spaced loops. Once the area becomes flat, you can terminate those loops to make it more manageable.
That makes sense. Although for my model, I need to terminate some loops between the hood and the headlights, which isn't flat.
You are also somekind of breaking the flow.. and you need some more geometry at the front shield:
Even if it is possible to have some "diagonality" in it... (of course not perfect... just to illustrate)
that you handle this whole thing as one piece for sds also isn't really helping you. a care is made from parts, it's not one solid chunk. it doesn't mean its impossible to make it as one surface, but really why complicate things?
I originally decided to model the car as one mesh because I viewed a car chassis as one object, except separated into different parts. All of the parts conform to the same shape. Also so the edges will flow into the other parts perfectly. Then I start to separate them.
There is also the issue of parts having more geometry than other parts, making it more difficult to line them up perfectly at separation points.
But I'm starting to think that modeling them separate will still be easier.
Not quite sure what you mean. I need diagonal lines in order to get the shape of the hood.
My second image does have diagonal lines without breaking the flow of quads. You have a diagonal line and then problems with triangles.. and even not enough geometry for the front window shield yet.. (so you have to loop cut again and.. get new problems with triangles..
you can definitel start with the main shapes like this but at one point it will just be a ton more complicated to keep it in one piece.
if you look at almost any car unless its some super luxury brand (and even then) you will notice the perfect lines arent always perfect. near perfect. but materials work, stuff isnt assembled perfect by the atom. gaps do exist, they are not always the exact same size