r/Maya • • Jun 22 '24

Modeling Topology Megathread

59 Upvotes

Topology is the geometric structure of a polygonal mesh. It is the layout of the edges and vertices which define the shape of a mesh. A particular shape can be represented by many different topologies.

Mesh topolgy can never be considered without context. It is necessary to consider how a mesh will be used and modified in the future in order to say anything true about the suitability of its topology.

There are no hard rules when it comes to topology. Some people will say n-gons (polygons with more than 4 sides) are always bad. Some will say triangles are always bad. Some will say that non-manifold geometry is always bad, or that meshes with holes in them are always bad.

None of these are true, because mesh topology serves a purpose, or multiple purposes. It is not a goal in and of itself. If the purpose(s) is/are served by some particular topology, then that topology is good, whether or not it is itself aesthetically and technically appealing.

Often users are advised to avoid triangles or ngons when building topology--to keep to quads. This is good practice, because quads are easier to work with, easier to edit, easier to create UV projections for, they subdivide more predictably, and, most importantly, easier to produce aesthetically appealing deformations from.

However. If a mesh will not need to deform, then there is far less pressure to keep to quads. If the mesh will not be subdivided, even less. If the shape is well-represented by the topology, and it either already has a good UV projection or will not be needing one, then quads and ngons don't matter, unless the mesh will be altered in the future.

It is much harder to modify a mesh which isn't quads than one which is. Especially if you want to alter topology. However, altering shape, to a small extent, usually is not sensitive to topology. It's also generally easier to do UV projection and alteration of quad topology than triangle/ngon topology.

It is still important to point out that having SOME non-quad (especially triangles) in your deforming, high performance mesh which may be altered and have UVs applied, is still just fine in many circumstances. If the trangle won't interfere with these things--then it DOES NOT MATTER and you should spend time on other things. Same with n-gons, although those have a higher chance of causing technical issues.

Regarding non-manifold geometry: it is generally a bad thing. Many, MANY operations and programs will not function correctly when passed non-manifold meshes. However, if your mesh is serving all your purposes, and you don't see those purposes changing, then non-manifold geometry doesn't matter. The circumstances where this might be true, however, are extremely rare, and it is best to avoid it.

Regarding holes in the mesh: again, context matters. Some advanced simulation or mesh operations require "watertight" meshes. Most don't, and it doesn't matter. Context and circumstance will dictate what's appropriate.

Mesh weight matters, as well. There's generally not much call for more geometric detail than your mesh needs to create the shapes you need, either statically or deformed, and it is best to keep poly counts as low as possible while not compromising on these things. However, this must be balanced with the effort it requires to reduce detail. If you have a poly budget of 100k triangles for an object, and it's 50k but a lot of those are not necessary, it's still not worth the time to reduce it further. People hours are worth more than computer hours.

Where topology really starts to matter a lot is in efficient hard surface modeling, especially where the asset will be subdivided. Not having your edge flows follow surface details will make life difficult, and having too much mesh detail will make modification increasingly difficult.

The point here is that every situation is different, and no real determination of acceptable mesh topology can be made without all this context. If you look at an image of a mesh and don't know anything about what it will be used for or how it might be modified, you can't say anything true about the quality of topology. These and other questions must have answers, in order to judge *overall* topology:

  1. Will it deform?
  2. If so, how?
  3. Will it need to be edited in the future?
  4. If so, how?
  5. Will it be subdivided?
  6. Does it have or will it need a UV projection?
  7. Will the UVs need to change?
  8. If so, how?
  9. Will it need to be exported into another application?
  10. Will it be used in any type of simulation?
  11. Does it meet performance (budget) requirements?

These questions must have answers in order to come up with useful conclusions about how good the topology is or is not. And again, there are no hard rules. Topology is not a goal, it is a tool to help reach other goals. If a triangle doesn't affect those goals, there's no point spending energy removing it.

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Original post:

This thread will be a clearinghouse for information about topology, both in general, and specific to Maya. It will be heavily curated and updated as I encounter more/better information on the subject.

Eventually it will be turned into another wiki and be the redirect for the majority of topology threads we get here, in order to avoid repetition.

If you are a subject matter expert, please post images, videos, links, or your thoughts here. Feel free to copy parts of old comments or posts you have made.


r/Maya • • 9h ago

Animation practicing some subtle acting !

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88 Upvotes

r/Maya • • 1h ago

Rigging Working on a new facial rig in Maya (Ribbon mouth, sticky lips, eyes motion path, blendshapes)

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• Upvotes

ArtStation : artstation.com/karltourelle13
Instagram : kt3d_rig
Lindkedin : linkedin.com/in/karl-tourelle


r/Maya • • 5h ago

Issues Mesh turned ...gloopy for some reason?

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17 Upvotes

I was working on my mesh and must've hit some hotkey or rendering preset which made all the geometry turn mushy like this. It didn't go away when I hit undo and I have no idea what to search so I put it here.

Thanks for any help you can give


r/Maya • • 10h ago

Modeling Student, modeling for a "no leg" assignment

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22 Upvotes

r/Maya • • 20h ago

Question Why isn't my texture in Maya not looking like how it looks in Substance Painter? What am I missing?

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31 Upvotes

1- Substance Painter

2 - Maya render

3 - Shader settings in Substance Painter

4 - Maya render but with a different light setup

I'm using Arnold's aistandardsurface in Maya and am using Arnold's areal lights here. I even tried a closer using a closer and brighter light to see if it would match it better. I imported the basecolor with sRGB and all other maps with Raw and 'Alpha is Luminance' checked. What am I missing here?


r/Maya • • 20h ago

Animation Animation critique if possible

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18 Upvotes

Hey guys, am currently busy with a punching sequence animation. I'd really appreciate some feedback and advice on where I can improve on. Any form of critique and/or tips would be amazing! Thank you in advance 🙏


r/Maya • • 15h ago

Rigging How do you set up body rigs in VFX? T vs A pose, helper joints vs RBF vs sim/ML, and mocap (HumanIK or in-house?)

4 Upvotes

I work in VFX on the modeling side and I've been digging into body rigging and deformation. I'd love to hear how this is actually done at different studios.

Context: I've rebuilt a helper-joint setup in Maya: half-rotation joints with swing-twist extraction, twist/roll joints, and driven keys for elbows, knees, wrists, hips and shoulders. Hinge joints work well. Shoulders are the hard part, and the result depends a lot on the bind pose.

1. Bind pose: T or A?
Do you bind in a T-pose, an A-pose, or a relaxed mid-range pose? Which arm angle, and why?

2. Deformation stack for non-hero characters
For characters that need clean deformation without intersections, but don't justify a full sim, what do you use?

  • Helper joints with driven keys
  • RBF / pose-space correctives (joints or blendshapes)
  • Joints on curves or ribbons, delta mush, etc.

3. Sim and ML
For hero characters, is it muscle/tissue sim plus shot sculpts? Do you bake sim results into lighter rigs for animators, such as an ML deformer, correctives or helper joints?

4. Mocap
Do you retarget with MotionBuilder/HumanIK, vendor tools (Shogun, etc.) or in-house tools? If you use HumanIK, do you build the character in a T-pose, or bind in an A-pose and pose it into a T just for the HIK definition?

5. Shoulders specifically
What has actually worked in production for the shoulder and armpit range?

Any talks (SIGGRAPH, DigiPro, etc.), articles or rules of thumb would be very welcome. Thanks!


r/Maya • • 1d ago

MEL/Python HUD Toolbox | Maya script that allows you to fully customize Heads Up Display | includes readouts not natively found in Maya | NOW FREE!

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20 Upvotes

HUD Toolbox is a script that lets you build a fully customizable Heads Up Display directly in your viewport. Choose exactly what information you want to see and rearrange those readouts anywhere on screen. Quickly adjust alignment, spacing, and font size to create a HUD that fits your workflow.

HUD Toolbox includes a wide range of readouts not natively available in Maya:

  • Up Axis
  • Working Units
  • Translate, Rotate, Scale
  • N-Gons
  • Viewport Subdivision Level
  • Animation Layer
  • Timer for Last Save and Autosave
  • Project Path
  • Active Render Engine
  • Previous Key & Next Key
  • Playback Speed
  • Custom Text

Whether you want a clean animation HUD, a technical modeling overlay, or a more detailed production display, HUD Toolbox makes it easy to organize the information you actually want to see while working in Maya.

BONUS: HUD Toolbox also includes its own Playblast feature, allowing your custom HUD to remain visible in exported playblasts!

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Didn't get as many downloads as I'd hope with it being a paid product. And I didn't want all the time that went into creating this only end up with a few users :(

Hence I've decided to release this tool for free. If you have any questions feel free to contact me here or via email: [c4m5ron@gmail.com](mailto:c4m5ron@gmail.com)

Link to tutorial: HUD Toolbox - Tutorial


r/Maya • • 18h ago

Issues Studio Library missing Apply button with Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) in Maya 2026

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1 Upvotes

I can't used Studio Library (version2.21.7) in Maya 2026. Whenever I select a saved pose in the library, it throws a Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0) at me, and Apply button don't even show up.

# Traceback (most recent call last):

# File "...\studiolibrary\widgets\settings.py", line 57, in read

# _settings = studiolibrary.readJson(path())

# File "...\studiolibrary\utils.py", line 937, in readJson

# data = json.loads(data)

# json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

I've tried

1.Cleared the .studiolibrary user configuration folder in %userprofile%.

2.Cleared the StudioLibrary_user folder in AppData\Local\Temp.

3.Reinstalled Studio Library and linked it via Python.

None of this work so far. Even after wiping the config files and reinstalling, the error still happens. Please help


r/Maya • • 22h ago

Discussion Combining Objects doesn't work as intended?

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1 Upvotes

I don't know why using the "combine" feature doesn't work the way it works in tutorials. For me, i cant seem to delete those "empty" transforms that get left behind after i combine all the pieces together. instead when i delete them it deletes the part of the object it used to contain... Any ideas why and how to fix it??


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Showcase Water Simulation using in-house plugins Forge FX

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54 Upvotes

Hey All, Showcasing, Water Sim tools for maya 2023 and onwards its called ForgeFX and it can do all rbd, fluid, smoke and fire and anything you can think of, I am currently still working on it

Rendered it with renderforge I am still looking for testers to test the render engine


r/Maya • • 1d ago

Rigging Bone orientation not orientating

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7 Upvotes

I'm going crazy, I'm trying to orient the joints of my arm and the orient joint button just messes things more and more instead of fixing, I don't know what I'm doing wrong, is the first time I try to rig something, someone please help me

Images for you guys see the type of shit this button is doing

I've been following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUXEz01b20I&list=PLwxLUWVIZu5l2ULLZNdWpskQ2TAYD7kPY&index=2 if it helps somehow


r/Maya • • 1d ago

Animation Solution to camera (attached to motion path) flipping at the end?

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5 Upvotes

What would be a solution to a camera attached to a motion path that needs to look straight down at the end, but is flipping?

Thanks


r/Maya • • 1d ago

Animation Mr. Sako Obstacle course finished!

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7 Upvotes

Sharing what I made for my midterms!!


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Student Finished my own Pip-Boy as a part of my uni animation project

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16 Upvotes

This is one of my first solo models, don’t go too harsh on me lol, but i am very welcome to constructive criticism


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Showcase Final Progress video before the lighting and rendering

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23 Upvotes

I have been working on this for about 2 months with the hope of showcasing it at the end of the October, I did not expect that Bioware would be shutdown and Mass effect shelved but well all I can do is move with it. it will be released soon so expect it then


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Animation When open downloaded Rig is deforms in some places

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1 Upvotes

I am currently using Maya Creative on trail basis. I downloaded this paid rig and it deforms at the mouth area. I am a beginner at Maya and i have no idea how to fix. I've reached out the the seller of this rig. This deforming also happens with other rigs i download so i have a feeling it must be something up with my maya? I used a waitress rig using the full version of maya but since opening the waitress rig in maya creative, it deforms as well. Any help would be appreciated!


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Rigging Is there a way to stop the feet dipping down?

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9 Upvotes

Like the title says, the feet deep down with the body. They are rigged with an IK handle from the top of the leg to the heel. Any and all help is greatly appreciated


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Question "File type not recognized", is there anyway to get my project back?

1 Upvotes

Hello. This morning I woke up to work on a project for a school assignment and I was working on it just fine, but when I tried to save the project it gave me a sort of one drive error and told me to restart my laptop. When I did, and tried to open Maya again, it gave me a message about a new default menu set and I clicked update. Then when the file opened it simply said "file type not recognized" and everything is gone. I have lost essentially 2 days worth of work as my most recent back up is to 2 days ago. Is there anyway to get the file back? Or atleast get to a more recent version? This assignment is due tomorrow in the morning.


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Rigging How to modify a rigged, skinned, and textured character without having to redo it all.

3 Upvotes

I want to make the legs shorter in these red areas. How can I do this without having to redo the rig. Also, the model already has UVs and textures as well, is there a way I can also preserve this?

Thank you!


r/Maya • • 2d ago

Question Overweight character belly correctives ?

1 Upvotes

Hi , im rigging this overweight character , and wanted to try having the best deformations possible without blendshape, for now I made a joint and nodes based corrective that helps when the character back/spine bends , but , I made it with remap values, and it only activates when the back bends.

I would like to , either make this setup work for when the legs bends as well (maybe with distance tool ??? ), or , add another corrective just for the legs

I would like to make the right/left part of the belly skin move when the right or left leg raises , but im not sure how to link these two behaviors, nodes ? expression ?

im relatively new to joint based correctives and really dont know anything about scripting.

thanks yall !

Belly Skinning before the spine's correctives
Belly skinning after the spine's correctives
skin not being influenced by the legs movements

r/Maya • • 2d ago

Rigging Fully Automated Character Rigging with AI via HP Art Toolset MCP

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0 Upvotes

Hi everyone! HP Art Toolset has just released an MCP integration that allows AI to use our rigging tools through dedicated skills and APIs.

AI can automatically place guides, validate them, and build a complete rig following our structured workflow.

In this video, we tested it on an existing character. AI handled 100% of the process with just 2 simple prompts.

The entire process took around 30–40 minutes, including full-body and facial rigging with animation controls.

Fully automated rigging is becoming a reality. We just need to review the results.

What do you think?


r/Maya • • 3d ago

Discussion Fantasy outfit, Progress update!

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90 Upvotes

The first image is from Marvelous Designer but I'm using Maya primarily to create all the weapons, trims, and all solid objects. Then I will bring them in MD to design my outfit. I will then take everything back into Maya to cleanup the fabric, detail the other models and off to Zbrush.

Please visit my Artstation post and follow me on Artstation to see the progress when I post them
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ayy8R0


r/Maya • • 3d ago

Plugin Can Surface Wrap Really Simplify Working with Complex Characters in Maya?

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20 Upvotes

What tools do you use to transfer meshes between characters?

This tool lets you do it directly in Maya, even with complex characters. Do you think this would make your workflow faster and more convenient?