Bipedal Cat - Topology Issues
polycounter lvl 7
I've started working on this bipedal cat about a week ago now, did most of the body parts separate and now I am trying to make a single mesh out if it but I'm having issues with the topology, mainly around where the butt connects with the tail, and how to do the edge-flow around where the thighs and hips connect so that it will eventually animate smoothly once I reach the skinning stage.
I keep either ending up adding more and more edge loops around the entire torso to solve issues, which is causing way too many polygons in places that dont need that level of detail, or an overabundance of tris which cause turbo-smooth errors. Also I keep getting a lot of poles as well which are just generally undesirable.
If anyone could give some critique on where the edges loops should flow, or possibly better references for cat/human hip anatomy, that'd be incredibly appreciated :poly136:
Tail and torso are hidden for convenience.
2/13/2010 - Scroll to the bottom for latest changes/update.
Replies
Hope it helps.
thats a long debated issue, and from what i've seen the general consensus is to stick with quads when you can, but a triangle here and there isnt going to kill anything, especially since it'l be triangulated inside the engine you use in the end.
Were you just not able to use quads and that's why you opted for tris? I myself found it extremely difficult to stick with quads without my model looking ridiculous in certain areas, but to be honest I don't do animals anyway. I'm kind of curious though.
It is frowned upon, however, for high-polygon models because it can cause smoothing issues and such.
I actually don't really do animals either, I mainly work in hard surface modeling if I can help it because topology rarely comes up as a problem issue.
The issue with the tris is that every good soft body model I see uses natural edge flows along where the actual muscles would be on a person and it makes for really well done animation because you reduce the amount of awkward tearing and geometry errors at places like hips and shoulders.
I'm kinda floundering in the dark though because I only have a handful of pictures with the proper edge flow on them, it would be so much easier if I had the actual physical model to rotate around and examine it's topology.
Since I posted that picture I managed to reduce the tris to nill and change the edge flow around to better match muscles according to my pictures, my only problem is this has resulted in many MANY five-point poles all over the mesh.
I really have next to zero experience with any soft body models, animation, edge loops, or animation topology so I'm kinda floundering in the dark here.
I feel for you, atleast it looks like you're doing a far better job than I when attempting a soft-bodied creature. Good luck, I hope it works out for you.
Keep in mind that other people beyond just you will probably need to interact with the mesh and you will need to be nice to these people otherwise you'll end up with a spork in your eye at the next company BBQ. It might look like you accidentally tripped and landed on it, but trust me it was planned.
- Sculpting, keeping it strictly quads is a good idea for the base mesh, not necessary for the final low poly. Tris lead to pinch points and can get ugly fast.
- Skin weighting, it's helpful to have some nice loops, but a few tris never killed anyone especially if it keeps you from running a bunch of loops right next together.
- Personal work flow, if you're the type of person to work in edge loops and rings it makes sense to work in way that doesn't have you manually selecting a bunch of edges.
Also apps like Maya manage hidden edges and you end up having to define the hidden edge rather than just flipping it (like Max does) so you might end up with an edge in a quad just to get it to deform correctly. But keeping in mind its all tris in the end makes this ok.
Work any way you want, just be mindful of the spork.
No Tris what so ever, a few poles though. Happy to hear any critique/ see any paint overs for changes you'd think would be beneficial.
Also it has significantly more rump then the earlier post, not sure if its too much, too little, too low, etc. From the front I know it seems like the hips balloon out a bit too much and I'm going to fix that, right now I just finished the topology.
What's bothering me atm is that you've given it a female ass and that makes my furryometer flash red. as far as I know cat posteriors dont have muscle structure which would look like that. from the front it looks roughly right though
If it's going to keep the people butt, then nevermind.
No thumb in this shot, not sure yet how to attach one.
Any critique how to make it more object hold-able yet catlike would be great.
EDIT:
Changed the hand flow, I'm not much of an animator so I don't know how well this will be able to move. If anyone can critique the edge flow that's be great
Right now the gaps between "fingers" is really too stiff. Make the fingers themselves have a puffier roundess that comes to a semi-sharp end (and flat where the inside of the fingers would be).
I'm merely speculating on what I can envision in my head. I don't have the resources to actually draw/model right now, sorry.
Been a while, updated it a bit. trying to get the head topology right, and the body is looking good now. It might be a little stunted though. short legs and all. Now that I have the mesh topology okay I will probably work on putting the cat-like silhouette back in.
Feet are kinda screwed up right now. Will fix later.