All language subtitles for 7 Topology Tips Every 3D Artist Should Know

When working in the VFX industry as a modeler, you are oftentimes required to model with a sub-dework flow.

This basically means that when rendering the object a sub-serve modifier is applied to your mesh.

If you've ever used this modifier,

you know that adding this will bring out all the bad topology in your mesh,

and you have to add supporting edge loops to keep the shape.

If you're not doing it right, this can leave your mesh very messy.

That is why I've put together this list of seven tips on how to handle your topology.

Tip number one. Let's say we have this simple corner. When adding a subsurf modifier,

it completely loses its shape, so we have to add supporting edge loops.

A lot of people leave it like this, which might work for this simple example,

but with a more complex mesh, it gets very messy very quickly.

As you can see, we have three edge loops close together where we don't need them.

This is especially bad, we have a curved shape right besides, where it's important to have an even distance between edge loops.

Also, if we apply the modifier you can see that the distillation is much more dense in these areas,

which might cause problems when adding a displaced modifier or deforming the mesh.

Luckily there's an easy fix to that.

In edit mode, press K for the knife tool and cut the diagonal edge from the corner, like this.

You can now delete the inner edge loops on both sides.

Now your edge work goes around the corner.

When applying the subsurf modifier, the tessellation is much more even.

Here's an example on where I used this method.

As you can see, I'm using it very often, which makes the topology of my model look very clean.

Tip number 2

For this next tip, let's create UV sphere and extrude some faces.

If we add a sub-serve modifier, everything gets smooth,

so you might think to use creasing to sharpen the edges.

This might totally be enough for what you needed for.

In VFX though, this is not really the way to go.

First of all, you can see that the smooth shading looks a bit weird on the edges.

Also, creasing might cause problems when exporting the model to other software,

since it might not be supported there or work a bit differently.

So let's instead use supporting edge loops.

We now again have these corners, which we know how to fix from the previous step.

But let me show you a different method for adding the support edge loops.

Go to Select > Select Sharp Edges.

Alternatively, you can select them by hand.

Now press Ctrl+B to battle them.

In the settings, set the shape to 1 and the segments to 2.

Also change the miter outer to arc, which will create this corner for you.

With a knife tool you can now simply connect it like this, which will get you the same result as tip

number one. Now the topology looks fine but you have this weird pinching in the corners. Obvious

pinching is very common on curved surfaces if you don't have enough topology. In most cases you can't

Let's add a new sphere, but this time apply one level of sub-serve modifier first.

Now as before extrude some faces out, select sharp edges and battle them.

As you can see, there still is pinching, but it is much less obvious as before.

Of course, you could increase the topology even more, but depending on what material

this object gets and from what distance it is seen, this might already be enough.

If you now compare it with the creased version, it looks a lot cleaner.

Of course, you could enable auto smooth, which will get rid of the rear shading, but this

will also introduce some sort of pinching and make the edges perfectly sharp, which looks

very unrealistic.

Tip number 3.

Let's say you have this very even tessellated mesh, but for some reason you need a lot of topology in just one area.

To have these extra edge loops not go through your whole mesh, there's a simple trick.

Select the two neighboring vertices and move them back.

Now connect the outer vertices to cover and remove the inner edges.

Alternatively, you can use the knife tool and do it like this.

If that still isn't enough, you can just do it again.

I used this tip in this example where I needed the topology for the buttons but didn't want

Tip number 4

The next tip is not really an easy solution to a problem but requires a bit more work.

So let's say you have a curved surface and you want to have a round cylindrical shape indented in there.

So you might add a cylinder, set the vertices to a really high number and then just use the Boolean modifier set to difference to eat away from the surface.

For a lot of cases this is quite enough but when using a subdue workflow it isn't.

So let's instead use a cylinder with much less vertices.

I mostly try to stick with numbers that are a power of 2.

If you move the cylinder in place it should roughly have the same spacing between edges as the sphere.

Now again use the Boolean modifier set to difference.

In this simple symmetrical example I can use a mirror modifier to save some time.

You might not be that lucky in your case.

Let's now start by connecting the vertices of the cylinder to some close edge loops of the sphere.

On the left side I want them to go left, on the top they should go up.

Let's do the same for the bottom part.

I can now delete some of the edges I don't need anymore.

In this area we could simply make a triangle out of this,

but since it's very easy I would just have it flow like this to keep it quads.

Same below. There's no step-by-step guide that always works in these cases,

but after doing it a few times you start to see solutions to how your topology could flow.

When you're done you can battle the edges with a shape set to 1.

Let's apply the mirror modifier and use grid fill for the hole.

We can now easily add a sub-serve modifier in the mesh stays in shape.

Tip number 5

The next tip again is a simple one. If you've ever tried to use a sub-serve modifier on a UV sphere,

you might have noticed that the top and bottom will get this ugly star shape.

If you added a displacement modifier with a simple cloud texture, this is even more obvious.

There are two simple workarounds for that. Instead of using a UV sphere, you could use an

icosphere. When subdividing it, the triangles turn into quads. We can apply the modifier and then use

the 2 sphere function to make it actually round. If you use the same display modifier, you can see

that it works quite nice and we don't have this ugly star. Alternatively, you can subdivid

The cube and again use the to sphere function to make it perfectly round.

This will get you an even tassellation without the weird problems on the ends.

Tip number 6

This next tip is for a mesh that splits into two.

If we give it some supporting edge loops, we have the three edges going into three directions.

To fix that, we can make these two edges meet in the center by using the knife tool.

We can now delete these edges which already looks much cleaner.

To not have these two edges that close together, we can add an edge loop in the center and

then draw it like this.

Tip number 7.

Let's say we want to have a cylindrical shape come out of a surface.

You might want to do it with a Boolean modifier set to union, but this will not work in a subdue

workflow.

At least you then have to fix the topology by hand.

Luckily there is an easy trick.

For that you first have to activate the loop tools add-on which comes with blender.

In the sidebar under edit we then have the loop tools panel.

We can now select some phases, inset them with eye and then press circle in the sidebar, then

just extrude it and give it some supporting edges.

If the surface is curved, you need to deselect the flatten option, otherwise this will destroy

the curvature.

You can also play with the other options if you run dual-weird problems.

I hope this step will help you model with a sub-d workflow while still keeping the mesh

very clean.

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