Advice on this topology problem? (Converging hard and soft edges)
I am trying to create perpendicular edges partway through a square-ish shape. I want one edge to be soft, and the other sharp.
My first attempt:
With this attempt I thought to pull apart the edges on the soft edge, so they diverge away from the hard edge and minimize the issue.
The topology:
The Issue is that I still get a slightly sharpened edge along the top of the object:
My second attempt:
With this attempt I decided to try and terminate the edge loop before it reaches the soft edge, as opposed to pulling it apart to try and minimize the problem.
The topology:
This fixed the sharp edge along the top, but the top edge now indents in an unsavoury way:
I seem to be able to stop the indent by adding support loops along that edge, but that just recreates the problem I had in the first place.
My third attempt:
With this attempt I decided to create edge loops that flow around the front faces, instead of beginning at the hard edge and terminating or being pulled apart at the soft one.
The topology:
The issue is that the geometry looks drastically different due to the different edge flow and 6 edge pole at the point where the hard and soft edge converge. It isn't a bad result, and I will keep this technique in mind when I want to create geometry like this, but it isn't what I am looking for.
Any help would be much appreciated!
Replies
Does moving these verts out to the halfway point help?
It looks like this:
It seems that it fixes the problem mostly, but I'm hoping to make it just a bit cleaner (fixing up the distortion around the vertices/edges I moved). That may just be limitations with how the model is shaped though :)
Have lots more geo. Imagine your mesh with some subdivisions, and without that problematic vertical sharp detail - once everything looks correct, you can easily get that vertical sharp detail by pulling an edge without much support loops.
Second this.
The way I would go about it is subdividing the shit out of it, rezolving the issue with sculting tools, and then make a normal map.
I used your advice on a different shape and it helped quite a bit! :)
So like sculpting out the problem and baking it to a low poly mesh?
Yes, that would be the solution. The highpoly is simply just "data" that will be used in the bake maps, so it doesnt matter what to do to achieve the high poly. If you are working low to high and find issues, make the low, duplicate it and put enough supporting edgeloops and then subdivide for the high.
I've not worked much with baking maps, so I will definitely look into this in the wiki.