Need serious help with n-gon/tri fixing!

spectre1130

Ok folks this is my first time posting here, so I hope I can get some much needed help. My problem is that of the 5 sided ngon and tri situation where I cant fix one or the other without creating new bad geo. This is my first character model for school, and while it won't be going into a game engine, I still need to figure out the process of fixing these is If I'm ever going to advance. Plus I want to start moving on to blocking out some clothes from the original mesh and don't want to move forward until these edges are right and the model is well shaped. My teacher has shown us several times how to fix these by cutting from the base of the tri to the corner of the n-gon-but for the life of me I can't get it right without causing new problems as stated above. Below is a few screen-shots of my concerns.

Thanks in advance for any and all help.
Damian

onionhead_o

u should give this a look http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology

cryrid

Depending on what the intended use of the mesh is though, you may want to rework some of the areas for better deformation, or relax it and aim for a more consistent density if you plan on sculpting.

spectre1130

Thanks for the replies so far, and big-ups to the paint over cyrid.

Twoflower

wouldn't this be a much easier fix or would it cause strange deformations when animated?

Daelus

One thing to keep in mind when terminating edges, is that you have to essentially end up with an even number of edges or terminate it at the symmetry line (if you have one). 5 sided polygon? Find a triangle or another n-gon to get even numbers. Got a triangle? Find another triangle, put em together and delete out the shared edge. You can chase the triangle all you want, but it won't go away unless you get it to an even number of edges. If you're working with symmetry there's no reason to have any unwanted triangles or n-gons, because you will have same number of edges on each side (meaning an even number of edges).

Keep in mind that a few triangles is not the end of the world. If you're trying to make a mesh for sculpting it will help somewhat though, otherwise it doesn't really hurt unless its right in the middle of a deformation area that needs to be smooth.

As for your recent question, probably. It's not ideal considering the relatively thin level of detail, however it is in a largely hidden area. I would probably try and put the edge redirection on the side of the torso just below the armpit as it doesn't really deform much, and try and keep even, consistent loops on the arms.

spectre1130

I fixed a few of the problems but I still have a couple tri's floating around. I'm so new to organic modeling and am probably being a little too picky. We are going to be rigging the models for a very basic animation as well, so I still do need to make sure the deformation areas are legit. Another thing I'm running into is the fact that the model when I add a smoothing group over the entire model like my teacher has shown us to do, it looks like a wet piece of play-doh, and not a human. We aren't aloud to add turbo/mesh smooth to the model as we have a 10,000 poly limit on the piece. Rounding him out with just smoothing groups and such is proving very daunting to me. Also, we aren't going to be baking any textures, so that is another limitation for the model.

spectre1130

P.s. we are not sculpting this in Z-brush or Mudbox either. That is the next modeling class.

cryrid

Don't worry about triangles, especially if you're not going to turbosmooth or sculpt the thing. You may even find the triangles will aid in the deformation (as seen in a few places in the wiki).

Once you get into the rigging and animation assignments, you'll start to get a better understanding of what works and what doesn't.