I can’t seem to fined a good leg and arm topology tutorial. Can someone help me fined one ?
the best arm/leg-topology tutorial i know of is the blenderella dvd from Angela Guenette. perhaps this screenshots from my humanoid character will help a little.
dark grey are the crusial edgeloops.
blue are edgeloops for bi- and triceps and the elbow.
red is the edgeloop, which is rotated 90° in rest pose for better animation.
Wow, that’s a great arm!
How would you summarize your goals when designing model topology?
Trying to ensure that deformations will be perpendicular or parallel to edge-lines?
Trying to evenly distribute faces and vertices over curved areas?
Trying to efficiently define shape?
I’ve been wanting to check out the blenderella tutorial. What kind of stuff is covered?
no, i don’t consider the alignment of the mesh after deformation while modelling (the rotated (red) edgeloops in the arm-model are copied from the blenderella model. i would’ve never thought of this solution myself). i only try to have an edgeloop with two supporting edgeloops where the deformation will cause a crease.
yes, this is definitely a goal for my models. but not only for curved areas: overall the faces should be evenly distributed, same size and as rectangular as possible.
no. i think it’s rather the opposite: use as much polys as you need (and can handle). certainly there is a point, when there are to much. but for example: if you have a curve in your model, don’t try to fit the mesh with strange topology and subdivision. add one or two edgeloops to gradually approximate the form. this will result in much better deformation.
you see HD videos of every second (sometimes timelapse) of the modelling process from scratch. angela shows very good topology for every part of the body. but: everything is perfect, she always has the right vertex-count, every edgeloop fits. you see no mistakes or corrections. unlike (for example) jonathan williamson she doesn’t explain why she is doing something.