What kind of mesh?
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What kind of mesh?

in The Commons
Basic question, but, when modeling... what kind of mesh works best with DS' stuff (autofit, collision, etc)?
I THINK I remember hearing something about quads in particular... but I can't remember if it was 'oh my god don't use quads' or 'oh my god only use quads.'
Comments
Quad or tris are fine, just never have n-gons.
Quads are always better, they deform, subdivide, map and smooth best... Tris are okay for things that you really need to do those things with... It really depends on the shape too and what the models is of... Like if it's clothing, just stick to quads. It was a static statue of a gargoyle that was of a decent level of detail and was more or less just for background shots, then tris (like the ones in Sculptris) are just fine.
Good topology and edge flow are often a dark art...
Here is a good explaination of the tris VS quads topic: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/modeling-with-quads-or-triangles/
As said above, OMG! as in They always say to use quads only. - i.e. you should be able to convert back and forth between quads and triangles and not have any left over triangles when you've converted to quads.
Ok, I think I'll shoot for quads.
My goal is to use Carrara to model clothing-like stuff, use Instant Meshes to retopo it into something reasonable, then UV Mapper to clean it up and then into Daz Studio and DynCreator to turn it into clothing.
Right now I'm experimenting with a simple hemisphere made into a quad mesh that's... probably way denser than it needed to be, but hey.
Tris will drape far better than quads, that's why dynamic clothes and Marvellous Designer clothes are usually in tris.
Thanks. Also games engines and I'm sure the other SW does to, convert the quads into tris automatically, but for the human eye, quads are easier to model with because you're being shown 1/2 the data you would see with tris but doing the same thing (if there are not tris left over when you convert to quads).
Given I'm using Intant Meshes to convert, the final result is pretty flexible. Carrara seems to work mostly in tri, unless I'm missing something.
They all use tris at runtime. The quads is meant to help ensure good layout and topology nd eaier on the eye. You can always switch to tris, drape, back to quads and when you are finished select surfaces that don't need as many quads (because they aren't in a bendy area that's draping) and decimate to reduce quad in that flattish area, and repeat for each less complex area.
I read recently that was the gist of what DAZ did with Genesis 3 - increase detail in really supple areas like lips and decrease detail in less supple areas although I haven't compared the different versions of the Genesis and V | M4 character geometry myself personally. I just read that. I think I even read Genesis 3 Female has less quads than Victoria 4 which seems sort of weird.
Will, how well does instant meshes work on retaining the integrity of the UV mapping after retopology? Just curious, I use decimator with DS and it does a fairly good job, especially with maintaining UV integrity. There is also a polyreduce tool with Ultimate Unwrap 3D pro and it will switch between tris and quads, but it can really distort the UV mapping.
Yes Quads are the way to go but I do have a lot of n-gons in my sci-fi stuff, it's not a hard rule but quads a perfered.
Don't kill youself trying to get all quads, how it looks is all that counts !
FSMC: I have no idea, I just started using it today. And my workflow has been to do the mesh stuff first and then run UV Mapper to tweak it as necessary.
It seemed to have erased the uv map. I don't know if that happens all the time or I missed a setting or what.
For the curious, here's 'hemisphere retopoed into denser, evenly distributed quad mesh and then made into clothes': http://willbear.deviantart.com/art/Dynamic-hemisphere-dress-test-593442718
(What I find really interesting is that I didn't even make a neck hole, I just set the top of the hemisphere in her neck and let it drape)
I've mostly just been trying to model small stuff like hair and clothes. I did do the obligatory cup tutorial and a few others. Used quads and tris per the tutorials. I don't even know what an n-gon is!
Looks draped pretty realistically to me but the draping does suggest she's walking.
Wilmap: I see what you mean about tri vs. quads. Quads definitely easier to move around.
Both of these are not quite correct. Tri's are used for 1 purpose: speed.
In actuality, triangles cause all kinds of problems for any type of smooth surface that bends (see: http://blog.digitaltutors.com/modeling-with-quads-or-triangles/ for some basic reasons).
Quads create a few problems for collisions that (properly created) tri's don't. Tri's are planar, quads can be planar, convex, or concave. Doing a ray to triangle collision is far faster and easier than compared to quads in the general case. However, tri's fail in far more draping cases than do quads, leading to drapes that "blow out".
Kendall
Daz can convert quads to triangles, but not the inverse, only 3DS can convert triangles to quads. (very useful when you use game assets in need to update or fix main mesh)
correct me if I'm wrong.
Problem with Tri Polygons is they can't change shape, Quads do, in the Optitex engine in DS I've found that quads drape much more naturally than their own clothing does.