Hello! I've been working for quite some time on my very first model, a sports car from the eighties to be more precise, that I would like to share with you once it's finished, but I've been wondering why you should use quads instead of tris or other kinds of shapes. Can someone tell me what happens when not all polygons are quads? It's quite a challenge to remove all non-quads. I'll show you a little teaser as a motivation...
Excuse me but, why do you say that you should use only quads ? I've used almost anything without problems so far.
Really? I've read it in one of ISI's tutorials. So actually it doesn't really matter if I use some tris as well?
Do whatever you had to do in order to drive that 84~87 small block 350 vette to the track That tutorial it's just a recommendation not a restriction. Using quads mantains almost the same shape's quality than tris, but with less complexity. Also quads are easier to manage to do the LODS.
Good job, looking forward for this one, send me a PM if you need help with the physics. I'm working on this kind of cars. Also remember that the 1988 version was the 35th Anniversary Edition, only a few changes were introduced like a new wheel design.
Nothing bad should happened, as long as you dont want to Subdivide your mesh using TurboSmooth or NURMS subdivision then you most likely will get pinching and surface will lok bad. Moddeling with quads makes it easier to manage edgeflow.Using triangles in your final low poly model is more than OK. PS. avoid nGons polys with more than 4 verts
Thanks for telling me not to use polys with more than 4 vertices! Looks like I've got some work to do... And another teaser!
I know. I'm an ass. Two new ones! (Don't drool too much while looking at the gearstick clothing. I still have to lower the amount of polys.)
The reason why using quads, and even possibly triangles only is automatic triangulation. your viewport in 3d application will use automatic triangulation generated by your 3d application, and you will tweak the shape of the mesh and also your texture and shading to that triangulation, but ingame engine can generate triangulation differendly, that may cause even change of shape, especially on polygons with more than 4 vertexes (quads) also will mess up your shading and how is your texture layed on your mesh. Also more automatic triangulation has to happen, more calculations for that are required, making your model less optimized. Quads are used because it still keeps the model tidy to look on and work with, but very easy to make automatic triangulation upon, but completelly ideally you would want to use only 3 vertex polygons.
Thanks for the in-dept information MikeeCZ! Some teasers to show my gratitude... (Door handle is missing. Didn't care to render it again.) Oh and please don't look at the 4+gons.
Very nice! I once modeled the exact same car for Racer. I suggest you add more polies to the wheel arches and to the b-pillar to make it more smooth. Nowadays, 50k - 75k polies for the highest LOD model is pretty standard. Take a look at pCars models, for example. Also, while you are working with quads, don't forget to fix the triangle orientations in the polies to get better reflections. Keep up the good work!
Yes and please for the low FOV driver (multiview with high resolution FOV around 24 with 5880 x 1080) as I'm high poly to the side mirror and the cockpit instruments. thx
I'll do my best! The b-pillars won't be much of a problem, but the wheel arches will be more difficult. But maybe I'm going to redo the hood. alpha-bravo, I've made especially for you a render of the interior with a fov of 130. Do you have any suggestions for me to improve? I hope the mirrors are good enough because they were a pain to model. I have around 30k polies at this moment (not-optimized ones included).
thx this a really nice move of you . This looks very good but to be honest a final serious statement is for me only after a ingame check possible. I try to explain it why: My target for every car is to set up the driver position as real as possible for maximum immersion this is the reason why I use multiview with triple screen and TrackIR. The distance from my eye's to the screen center is variable around 75cm to 90 cm. Typicaly I have to lower the FOV to a value of around 22 to 28 depending on Mod and type of vehicle and go back and up with the driver seat position. Using this low FOV has ATM some disadvantages I point out some of them: - All parts in near of the driver are through the used low FOV increased and if the mesh is not fine enough the parts with curves look edgy. Which relates specifically to following parts: side and rear mirrors, steering wheel (in my case disabled ingame) frame tubes, car body around the front and side windshield. Instruments. - if some parts are very reflectiv for example the edge of the bonnet on the windshield side this also don't look real. Better the edge does not reflect. - sometimes the range for the seat adjustment (up, down, forward, back) is to small - most of the available cars from the modding community does not support a change of the Mirror FOV or other Mirror settings. A good reference for available and working Mirror settings ISI's Howston G4. This is IMO one of the best cockpits for Multiview. - As a result of a low FOV setting the image in the rear mirrors with missing or wrong mirror FOV setting show the track from the side not from behind and the mirror is not usable. - The resolution of image in the mirrors is mostly to low. Depends how far the mirror is away from the driver. Example Howston G4 no middle back mirror and the left and right back mirrors are mounted on the bonnet this works good. Other example URD Darche side Mirrors as on the most cars sideway from the driver and very near. With this car I have all the pointed mirror problems. In many mod's I've seen a seperate option for triple screen in the vehicle options (garage). This would be also a good solution because with the low FOV the parts in front of the driver are more important but the parts left and right are less important in any case different to a single screen setup. But of course this is much more work for a artist. On the other hand the count of multiview user is growing you can see it here in the forum and as long as no other solution is available (for example oculus rift) multiview is the best available solution to get a experience as close as possible to the reality. alex
One more advantage of working with quads is that they are very easy to control triangulation. I normally explain this using a physical piece of paper, but that is hard through a screen... This will be better anyway. Sometimes you want to force a triangle a certain way because of topology, smoothing, what have you, very easy to do and manage when you have a neat mesh as a starting point Didn't see it mentioned, thought I'd add my 2 cents ^^
@ wgeuze, you're partially right! You can also control it by turning the invisible edge. Your way is easier of course. New question: if 75k polys is the max, does this mean quads? Because if so, I can still double the amount of polys. If this is about tris, then I'm screwed. By the way: I've put the model in someone's scene and made a nice render of it a while ago:
