Hard-surface topology help — debossed arrow on a lift button falls apart with Subdivision

Support Modeling
1

Hi everyone — I’m Chris. I’ve been using Blender for about 4 years, mostly lighting and rendering, but I’m finally tackling topology which I avoided for years.

I’m modelling a lift (elevator) button with an arrow symbol debossed into the surface (arrow is inset). When I enable Subdivision Surface (and add bevels/support loops) the arrow and surrounding area deform badly and become faceted — see attached images.

image
image1405×784 122 KB

What I want to achieve:

  • A clean, smoothly bevelled-inward (debossed) arrow that holds its shape with Subdivision.
  • Maintain mostly quads and a tidy edge flow around the arrow.
  • Recommendations for best workflow (boolean→retopo? manual inset? grid fill?), support loop placement, and controlling poles.

If possible, I’d love a short step-by-step video showing how to fix this topology — preferably a simple workflow I can repeat. Here are the Blend files.

help topology button.blend (1.0 MB)

Big thank you!!

2

image
image741×745 106 KB

To maintain its shape, the topology must be configured such that the edges are fixed.
And you don’t put Vertex as N-gon.

I don’t know if Doyoung-sang will be helpful.

Add…

This is a quick way to solve problems using bevels.
This method can be used when only the results are needed.
There may be issues with using it for various purposes.

ffsd.blend (1013.2 KB)

3

Had to rebuild this because i’m just using my non blender 5.0 PC :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

properTopologyAndEdgeCrease
properTopologyAndEdgeCrease506×1071 47.5 KB

Just do not use n-gons and maybe some edge crease…

4

@Christian2 Do you really need to model this detail? If it’s for the purpose of learning topology then fair enough but this is something that could be textured in with normal maps.