Squeaky Clean Topology in Blender

Begin with a quick introduction to 3d modeling, and follow along as you walk through the fundamental ideas of topology with in-depth examples of the entire process

Key Features

• The fundamentals of topology
• Learn to topologize quad-based and non-quad-based meshes with step-by-step examples
• Optimize your models to improve performance

Book Description

This book is an introduction to modeling and an in-depth look at topology in Blender. It will walk you through quad-based topology, and topology using triangles and Ngons. It illustrates best practices and things to avoid while modeling and retopologizing. It is full of illustrations and examples with in-depth explanations that showcase each step in an easy-to-follow format.

The book starts by introducing you to the user interface and navigation. It then goes through an overview of the modeling techniques and hotkeys that will be necessary to understand the examples. With the modeling basics out of the way, it goes straight into topology. Working through projects like a character, and a sci-fi blaster, the book will encounter and work through complex topology problems, and present solutions to the same. These examples focus on deforming character models, non-deforming hard surface models, and optimizing these models by reducing the triangle count.

By the end of this book, you will be able to identify the general flow of a shape's topology, identify and solve issues in your topology, and come out with a model ready for UV unwrapping, materials, and rigging.

What you will learn

• Navigation of Blender and its UI
• Basic modeling techniques required to understand the examples
• How to Identify the general flow of a model's topology, and what might cause issues
• The topology of a character, and the joints that they make up
• The topology of hard surface models
• How to optimize models for a reduced triangle count

Who This Book Is For

This book is for character modelers, sculptors, poly modelers, and hard surface modelers. Whether it is an introduction to modeling, or optimizing high poly or sculpted models, or just a deeper dive into the subject of topology, this book will walk you through the topology workflow from start to end.

Table of Contents

1. Navigation, Modelling Basics, and Hotkeys
2. The Fundamentals of Topology
3. Topology and How it Deforms
4. UV Unwrapping and UV Editing
5. Topology On a Deforming Character
6. Application of Topology on Quad-based Meshes
7. Topology on Non Quad-based models and Shading artefacts
8. Optimising Geometry for a Reduced Triangle Count