topology good for animation?

M1KES · Feb 2012

Hi everyone!
I in the process of converting a high rez mesh into a low rez one.
So as i was modeling and baking the normals this is what i had:

So i thought the normals looked a bit flat on the abs so as i decided to give it a little more geometry cause i still had some polys to spare.

I came up with this:

It looks much better with the normals and gives more detail.. i wanted to know though is if this geometry would give me problem while rigginng him? Is it acceptable for animation?

Eric Chadwick · Feb 2012

Doesn't make much sense to add these extra edgeloops, because you have a normal map which is doing this at a much higher detail level. If you feel the normal map isn't deep enough, then fix the highpoly sculpt and re-bake. I don't see why you're not using the normal map in your last shot.

Also these extra edge loops don't add to the silhouette, so they're pretty much a waste. More verts to weight to bones, more overhead.

Usually the best thing is to create an edge flow that matches the musculature, as this tends to deform really well. Some examples here
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryTopology

poopipe · Feb 2012

Speaking as somebody who rigs other people's models a lot I'd rather be given a torso that's basically nothing more than a slightly deformed cylinder than one where loops follow the musculature. Unless you're going for clever stuff like bulging or you're running muscle sims etc. it's just making my (the rigger's) life harder for basically no gain.

With regard to your meshes I'd be a lot less annoyed about the first one than the second.

You'd have been better off just adding loops for the sticky-out biits of 6 pack rather than accentuating the sticky-in bits. that'd also give you nice horizontal loops that aid deformation

M1KES · Feb 2012

Thank you for the useful information Eric. I thought doubted that i really needed any more polys there but it looked a little flat in max to me...
But now i tried it in the xnormal 3d viewer, and wow... it looks awsome..

But now i am not sure what this means... does it mean that my 3ds max shader isnt that great? or my 3ds max viewport isnt configured properly? or the xnormal 3d viewer isnt reliable? Cause the quality diference is very big

Eric Chadwick · Feb 2012

Yeah, poopipe knows what he's talking about, so I would listen to him for animation topology info. I don't rig very much.

About the shader, there are many different shader methods in Max, some much better than others. Which version of max are you using?

There is an option in DirectX viewport settings to control the texture bitmap size. This is set to a low number by default. You want to check "Match Bitmap Size"
http://download.autodesk.com/us/3dsmax/2012help/files/GUID-4FB6180F-7C21-4B0E-903B-D25974C92FB-3126.htm

Also it looks like your Max shader has no specular map.

topology good for animation?

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