Why Is This Shading Issue Happening in Blender?

Gabriel_Dutra

      

I heard before that it is something related to the mesh's edgeflow, but I have never understood how to practically do it. I'll include some images of what I'm talking about and I'll also include some questions without answers, at least from what I know. Do I only have to copy already existing good and functional retopology? How do I do it on my own without any problems? In other words, how do I avoid this issue, since I want to learn how to be independent in modeling?

https://blenderartists.org/t/human-retopology-advice-welcome/1248218

Fabi_G

Hi! I'd say this is expected behavior with a smooth shaded mesh. Increase its resolution and/or use a normal map baked from a high poly to compensate for the lowpolys shading, depending what your goal is with the model. What matters in the end is that it holds up in the final render.

You could check out models with similar density on Sketchfab and switch between Matcap (mesh shading) and Matcap+Surface (mesh + normalmap shading) viewmodes to get an idea. Here is the wiki page on body topology, which contains some image examples too.

Eric Chadwick

Also helps to know there are invisible triangles inside every quad, and the direction of the triangles will affect your shading too.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Polygon_Count#Polygons_Vs._Triangles

These are the same shape, they just have different triangulation, which affects shading.

Gabriel_Dutra

Fabi_G said:

Hi! I'd say this is expected behavior with a smooth shaded mesh. Increase its resolution and/or use a normal map baked from a high poly to compensate for the lowpolys shading, depending what your goal is with the model. What matters in the end is that it holds up in the final render.

You could check out models with similar density on Sketchfab and switch between Matcap (mesh shading) and Matcap+Surface (mesh + normalmap shading) viewmodes to get an idea. Here is the wiki page on body topology, which contains some image examples too.

Thanks, that's what I needed!

Gabriel_Dutra

Eric Chadwick said:

Also helps to know there are invisible triangles inside every quad, and the direction of the triangles will affect your shading too.
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Polygon_Count#Polygons_Vs._Triangles

These are the same shape, they just have different triangulation, which affects shading.

That's interesting, thanks.