Boolean and high poly models?

Pope Adam

Question about the 'ethics', if you will, of high poly modeling concerning boolean shapes.

Is geometry terribly important as a high poly model, if it is only going to be used as a normal map?

I am making a lamp post and I want to create some intricate designwork into the geometry, and was thinking that I could make the neat design and then just boolean it out of the surface of the lamp post, therefore embedding a cool looking design, but not making much sense geometrically.


Anyway, in the long run of things, is this an acceptable procedure or will this cause certain complications while generating normal maps?

Thanks!

Tumerboy

as long as your smoothing groups don't give you wierdness (which would likely show up in the normal map) I don't see why not. It's basically just temp geometry that gets tossed after.

Pope Adam

thats what I was assuming, but in the past I'd always been discouraged from using boolean due to the horrible triangulating and n-gon'ing it does.

cheers!

Mark Dygert

Use Pro Booleans, much cleaner, especially because it retopo's the more objects you add. Also use James Haywood's script "clean verts" to get rid of verts along straight edges. That should help clean things up to a workable level for high poly.

http://jhaywood.com/maxScripts.htm

FicWill

Usually though, if your object doesn't need boolean holes to poke right through, you can get away with floating geometry over the surface of your high-poly object. This is actually preferable to boolean operations in most cases because you retain control over the location and placement of the floaters, and can duplicate, delete, reuse or replace them as needed.

Pope Adam

alright, sounds good. I agree that floating geometry is the way to go as well, non-destructive modeling is always a good idea.

Vig: Thanks for the script references, I'll put 'em into use ASAP

Mark Dygert

I agree floating is a good way to go, but you'll need to watch your shadows when you start rendering out AO via mental ray or standard rendering. The floaty bits like to cause trouble. It pays to leave them as seperate objects and turn off their shadow casting ability.