Topology Workflow : How to properly mesh that ( hard-surface, non sub-surf )

Hello !

Been using Blender for the past 8 years but only recently decided to finally learn how to properly topologize my meshes, to have clean, optimized polycount and issueless shading !

After watching a lot of tutos and did a few exercises, I’m still stuck sometimes

In this example, this is an Aircraft fuselage sheetmetal construction where the flat ovale obersvation window has to blend in the conical end of the fuselage. When fuselage quads meets the ovale window, this is where things gets hard for me.

I want to avoid using sub-surf at all costs.

I’m still unsure how to properly mesh that out.

Also, the windows gets rounded on their corners and attach to the fuselage frames, the only way I get around this is by having many pointy triangles, which si obviously bad. Tried using knife tool and edge loops to " quadrize " that area, without luck…

Do you have an always working method ?

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

On curved surfaces, you really shouldn’t be trying to put dense detail next to sparse detail, subsurf or no subsurf. Any meshing you may arrive at on those areas, you’ll just get horrible shading.

SAMPLE 2.blend (756.7 KB)

yeah its definitely tough to handle that part. im no pro but just attached a small attempt- its not perfect at all

U can easily deal with flat surfaces with triangles. But not in this scenario

Sorry for extremely late reply, it is worthwhile thanks !

Good topo for the win !

I would do the joints are “Archway Topology” to blend into the corner. If that makes sense.

Poor example below of my Paint version. Basically an Arch, then add Smooth/Sub Surf/Subdivide and play from there?