Book Image

Squeaky Clean Topology in Blender

By : Michael Steppig
5 (1)
Book Image

Squeaky Clean Topology in Blender

5 (1)
By: Michael Steppig

Overview of this book

This book is an introduction to modeling and an in-depth look at topology in Blender, written by a Blender topology specialist with years of experience with the software. As you progress through its chapters, you’ll conquer the basics of quad-based topology using triangles and Ngons, and learn best practices and things to avoid while modeling and retopologizing. The pages are full of illustrations and examples with in-depth explanations that showcase each step in an easy-to-follow format. Squeaky Clean Topology in Blender starts by introducing you to the user interface and navigation. It then goes through an overview of the modeling techniques and hotkeys that will be necessary to understand the examples. With the modeling basics out of the way, the next stop on our journey is topology. Working through projects like a character and a sci-fi blaster, the book will illustrate and work through complex topology problems, and present solutions to those problems. These examples focus on deforming character models, non-deforming hard surface models, and optimizing these models by reducing the triangle count. By the end of this book, you will be able to identify the general flow of a shape's topology, identify and solve issues in your topology, and come out with a model ready for UV unwrapping, materials, and rigging.
Table of Contents (13 chapters)
1
Part 1 – Getting Started with Modeling and Topology
6
Part 2 – Using Topology to Create Appropriate Models

Applying the bending and stretching deformation rule

In Figure 3.1, you can see an elbow joint. This is one of the most common joints modeled on a mesh being deformed by an armature. Deformation refers to the bending or stretching of a mesh and is used to describe any shifting of the mesh after the mesh is finished.

Figure 3.1 – An elbow joint

Figure 3.1 – An elbow joint

Our first deformation rule is that the edges of our grid need to be parallel to the axis of deformation. That is a bit of a mouthful, so we are going to break it down with a few examples. In Figure 3.2, we have a plane that has been bent around the y-axis.

Figure 3.2 – A plane bent around the y-axis

Figure 3.2 – A plane bent around the y-axis

Go through the following steps to make this shape:

  1. First, start by pressing Shift + A.
  2. Add a plane from the mesh dropdown.
  3. Then, go into Edit Mode.
  4. Click on RMB, and select Subdivide.
  5. In the bottom left of the Viewport, the Subdivide tab will appear ...