Opinion: manual topology, optimisation and Gamedev.tv

[Starry]

I expected in-depth lessons about manual topology in the " Blender Character Creator: Sculpt and Animate Your Own Characters" course, and I expected in-depth lessons about manual topology and optimising models for games in the " Blender Environment Artist: Create Your Own 3D Game Worlds" course, this is why I bought them, and I think this was a reasonable expectation to have.

In a professional context, correct topology is what makes models animation-ready models, and correct topology and optimisation is what makes models into game-ready models, so I think these topics are to be expected in premium courses, and I request that they be added.

[FedPete]

@Marc_Carlyon

[Munsa]

I have this course, but I haven’t started it yet, so I can’t say much about this one, concretely. What I can say, after doing a lot of courses, here and on Udemy, and from different authors, is that I have NEVER found a course that really prepared the models it taught for a game engine. Even those “blender” + “Unreal” ones only prepare a scene like it would be rendered, not played in. Some do acceptable topology but forget other fields like lightmaps, texel density or even simple “measure corrections” needed on games, others don’t worry about topology and use the mantra Nanite and Lumens like it would be all the solutions of all the problems. And they are not.

So, I learn all I can from Blender point of view from them, and then, via “try-error”, I learn to apply my models to a game. This is really time consuming and frustrating, and I would really like to find a good course on that, but it has been an impossible mission.

Sorry for the ranting, but as a no novice learner, my experience has taught me, once you arrive at trying to use your models on a “real” situation, you are on your own.

[Dwayne]

First, Topology is a field of study all on it’s own.
Second, Topology is also dependent on several factors. It’s not just “Is it animated” or “Is it going to be put in a game engine”. Those are questions for poly count. Topology is important for proper deformation, but it also depends on what type of shading system you’re using too. For example modeling just the knee of a human character lead to question like what’s it going to be used for? A game engine or an animation. Is it going to be high, medium or low poly. What is your poly specs? Poly spec is different depending on the media/Hardware it’s going to be on. A phone vs a PC Vs a console. What kind of shading? Is it toon/cel, anime, paint, photorealisic, straight or other. These are some of the things that are needed to be considered to produce “Proper” topology.

[Munsa]

Like I said before, I haven’t done the course, so I don’t know what is the topology problem told above. I agree topology is a field of itself and it really depends on what you are doing.

Normally, when you do a course, if it is not said specifically, I suppose the models are done to work on a normal PC, not a mobile or a very old one, not a hight-end one or a console. The style is normally obvious by the look at the end product. The title “Blender Character Creator: Sculpt and Animate Your Own Characters”, doesn’t say anywhere it is done for games. So, I understand “proper topology” like a “proper topology for animations”.

I did the course " Blender Environment Artist: Create Your Own 3D Game Worlds" when it was the first one, and then I did the second one. It is a very fine blender course and I learned a lot, but it is not, from my point of view, a “game asset/environment prepared” course, it is a “do a beautiful scene render of an environment” course type.

[Dwayne]

In the Blender Enviroment Artist course he teach the fundamental concept of working modularly and using simple transfroms to break up or hide repetive geometry. I did wish that he covered modular textures/texture swapping more. Modularity is key in game enviromet design. On spec-ing, you have different poly count allowences for different game engines. Even game engine versions sometimes like Unreal 4 vs 5. As for hardware, what is considered “normal PC” is really the minimum hardware needed to run your game.

[Dwayne]

Now back to my original point I was trying to make and apparently failed at. There is no such thing as a default “Correct Topology”. There are guidelines and best practices, but there are many cases where these are broken. A great example of this is Elastigirl from the movie The Increadables. The topology around her mouth(the corners mostly) breaks a lot of the guidelines(Rules) of topology. Why? Because it looks better when she is streatched out. I like to use the following when I explain topology to people. The thing that I point out is the ones on the right are bad topology. Until you need a sharing window animation. Now it’s great topology. Note: I go more detailed but I’m trying to keep this post short.

[Munsa]

I think I also didn’t explain well on my post… Sorry!!

I really care very little about poly count on courses, only if it goes to the deep end (ex. Low poly on all and a tree high poly on a course would be when I would care). Modularity is the key on making games, and it has been what I have been trying to learn well, and I am sorry to say that the problem I find in that course (and normally on any course) is that there are “basic knowledge” that is not covered or it is covered like it wasn’t important. Things like box measures (the base cube measures you will use) and why they can make your life way easier or complicated depending on what measures you decide, why spaces and highs(walls, doors…) have to be bigger than reality (camera field of view), or what is and why texel density is important. Lightmaps are also a big forgotten point, normally the engine can make them, but it needs a well done UV maps and not a “project to zero” or a “project from view” unwrap. Other problem important that normally isn’t talked about are collisions, not the simple ones, but on things like stairs…

Every one of those topics (and more) has been a problem I have faced when I tried to use the modular assets done in any courses for a playable game, and I have spend a lot of time searching and asking, and at first having to redo all the assets. This is a generalized problem, not only on this course or on this webside. I am not talking about more in deep themes. The themes I am talking about and more are needed to use those concrete assets on a game.

[Munsa]

About characters, this is not my speciality (and it won’t be), so “correct topology” in a character, for me, is any topology that allows the character move like you want without looking bad. Interesting about “Elastigirl”! It has made me curious, so I will search it …

[FedPete]

Blender does this triangluation for you (it’s the core of every 3D engine rendering). But it can influence the desired render out come. Some artist want to have influence on this. And do parts of the triangulation by them self.

Creating a (character) object in 3D depends technically total on it’s end-usage! To understand this, you need to have a lot of experience to get a good grip on that process. Which is hard to do.