A Quick Explanation of Floating Geometry
So, I'm still a bit green in terms of my modeling ability, but I feel like I'm at a point where I can explain to those who might be confused what floating geometry actually is. It's a term you may have seen thrown around a lot, but tutorials and explanations of this advanced technique can be a bit hard to come by. So in the interest of simplicity I will try to
A) Explain what floating geometry is and
Detail how to create and apply it to a model
in as basic terms as I can.
What is floating geometry?
The simplest part of understanding floating geometry is where the name comes from. Floating geometry is literally a feature of your model which sits above, to the side of, etc., your main project. It generally consists of indented structures (a great example I have found is to use floating geometry to craft holes for bolts or screws) with some kind of internal extrusion. Creating such features this way can be handy for two reasons.
The first is that it allows the modeler to keep the basic form of their project as clean as possible. When you begin to add complex intrusions/extrusions there is a lot of margin for mistakes to be made, especially as a beginner. By using floating geometry you at most risk losing only a minor portion of the overall model, as opposed to a much larger portion.
The second advantage is modularity. Creating one hole & bolt object as floating geometry and distributing it throughout the model is a lot easier than having to create each hole and screw individually. In addition, if the model sees a drastic change and you need to either move or destroy the screw object the difference is dragging and dropping your floating geometry into a new location vs a much more complicated process of messing with vertices or having to delete faces entirely.
I will stop here for now, since I am writing this kind of spur of the moment and think it would be better if I prepared my thoughts a little more thoroughly. Expect images soon to help detail the points above, and the second part sometime later this week.
A) Explain what floating geometry is and
Detail how to create and apply it to a modelin as basic terms as I can.
What is floating geometry?
The simplest part of understanding floating geometry is where the name comes from. Floating geometry is literally a feature of your model which sits above, to the side of, etc., your main project. It generally consists of indented structures (a great example I have found is to use floating geometry to craft holes for bolts or screws) with some kind of internal extrusion. Creating such features this way can be handy for two reasons.
The first is that it allows the modeler to keep the basic form of their project as clean as possible. When you begin to add complex intrusions/extrusions there is a lot of margin for mistakes to be made, especially as a beginner. By using floating geometry you at most risk losing only a minor portion of the overall model, as opposed to a much larger portion.
The second advantage is modularity. Creating one hole & bolt object as floating geometry and distributing it throughout the model is a lot easier than having to create each hole and screw individually. In addition, if the model sees a drastic change and you need to either move or destroy the screw object the difference is dragging and dropping your floating geometry into a new location vs a much more complicated process of messing with vertices or having to delete faces entirely.
I will stop here for now, since I am writing this kind of spur of the moment and think it would be better if I prepared my thoughts a little more thoroughly. Expect images soon to help detail the points above, and the second part sometime later this week.
Replies
However I have seen some recently, mistakenly (or not) refer to it when it comes to low poly models. IE:floating smaller elements over a large surface such as a wall, in order to save some geometry and/or allow a bit more versatility with changing the model down the line.
With any asset that needed any sort of vertex lighting this was a big No No, because there wouldn't be enough verts to shade properly. With lightmapping and other solutions nowadays it is less of an issue, but should still be considered for mobile games & such.