Low Poly Wall Topology Question

[Gordon]

I spent some time remodelling some of my objects. I’ve experimented with some drafts of a kind of mountain rockish wall. But I’m wondering, now when we’re beveling and making cracks here and there, when should we join vertices?

Sometimes after beveling, I can join vertices to get rid of them, but then I create let’s say 3 triangles instead of 4 squares. What is more important, having less tris or keeping quads? I know that everything is converted into tris in the end. But I also know that quads can triangulate itself and is more flexible? Does that matter in this case, or does it only matter when you want to subdivide stuff?

Also, I keep wondering what is considered low poly? Everyone seems to have a different opinion on it. I have 3 walls below. First with 840 tris, next with 587 tris, and last one with 442 tris (excluding the pillars). Is this too much? You want to optimize it for game engines right? But everyone seems to have a different understanding of what low poly is now when computers are getting faster and faster. You can create the illusion of detail with image textures and painting, but it’s not really them same as have extrusions and bevels. Where should I draw the line?

Maybe I shouldn’t concern myself with this now. But since I’m spending so much time with this modular pack, I want to make it worth my effort and create something that can be used in the future. I know @FedPete mentioned Grant’s Orc character build process. I haven’t gotten there yet, but will these questions be covered there?

Thank you!

[FedPete]

@Gordon

having less tris or keeping quads?

Having quads is important.
Don’t think too much about too many vertices. While keeping a low poly profile.

@Gordon

quads can triangulate itself

Sometimes it can be handy to have an influence on how a quad is divided into two triangles. But that is more a high end, tripple AAA, game dev problem discussion. Really not an issue here.

@Gordon

You want to optimize it for game engines right?

Yes, it’s important for game engine optimization. But then we are talking about millions of vertices. An object of 500 or 800 vertices doesn’t make any difference. And depends more on how it will be used in the game. Close by pillar 10.000 vertices or far away, in the background 100 vertices. Or just a bitmap. But bit maps need loading time, cost memory. And are also part of the equation of fast renders.

You could switch over to Eevee and make Eevee renders as fast as you can.

[Gordon]

Ok, thank you. That cleared up a lot of things for me!

[Gordon]

Oh and one last thing. In the course we are using the knife tool to cut bricks into the wall. Wouldn’t this create a bunch of ngons? The other way involves stacking seperate cubes on top of eachother. This would create a lot of geometry that cannot be seen inside the walls. But if quads are important and tris dont really matter that much at this scale, wouldn’t that be a better approach?

[FedPete]

It’s just a setup to learn you the knife tools. It’s not about having an optimized mesh object.
Again don’t worry too much about being 100% precise in 3D design. These courses are all about learning Blender tools. Then with more skill sets you learn more about optimization. Which depends on the usage of your project; visualization, ArchViz, animation (high/low end), game development, simulation … etc.

But yes, have a face with 5 or more vertices isn’t a good topology. In the sense of easily adding more mesh details. But for the walls, and the idea of having a low poly look and feel it doesn’t matter.

If you say I want to have quads all the time, than you need to divide the plane in squares. But that can introduce other problems in mesh manipulation. So it’s best to follow grant. And learn some tricks.

And of course, have fun and enjoy making a modular dungeon.

[Gordon]

Yepp, got it! Won’t worry too much about it right now. I have much more to learn. I’m just pretty curious and it brings me a sense of satisfaction knowing that the topology is kept neat.

Will follow along and keep having fun with it. Thanks again for your very informative answers