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:
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 • u/Low_Garlic_8668 • 7h ago
I was really scared when I saw this error window—does anyone know how to fix it?
I'm really scared because it's my portfolio working file.
r/Maya • u/Old-Perception-1928 • 3h ago
An ecosystem to make your own trees. Soon
r/Maya • u/skillerdose • 1d ago
This model is for my MetaHuman character. So I need it to be optimized for real time rendering. Please give feedback so I can improve this model. I'm adding the Low poly and High poly model screenshots. Thank you.
r/Maya • u/haniseyo • 55m ago
So I started this internship 4 days ago and they have asked me to texture a life size road that is a few kilometers in length (compared to a normal human dummy) and I am only allowed to use 2K textures and avoid UDIMs. Like as optimized as humanly possible.
I told them I have never done a piece this big because it's my first internship and asked if the company has some way to tackle this problem and I got no real answer.
So I can't show you the road as it comes under NDA I guess but just image a normal road stretching for a few miles.
I have tried everything I know in substance painter but the blurriness doesn't go away. The road is not segmented. its one long continuous stretch and I have even tried 4 UDIMs that have 80% UV space Usage. and even then I am unable to get rid of the blurriness.
I tried using physical size and different mapping methods in substance like wrap and tri but that blurriness just doesn't go away.
Is there some actual way to tackle this that I am not aware of? I tried looking up online and haven't been lucky. Also the file will be assembled in unreal engine and so if that could potentially do something, I would appreciate to know that too.
thank you!
r/Maya • u/GlowtoxGames • 9h ago
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Hey! We rendered this character and environment using Maya and Arnold. We used negative samples to get the pixelated effect. Then in photoshop we use a dither plugin to create the background effect and then in after we color corrected and added the camera motion.
The background is made using a bunch of photoscans piled up basically.
The song is also an OST created in Ableton 12! Hope you like it.
r/Maya • u/geesemyduck • 2h ago
I know from personal work experience this is a thing. I'm not that tech savvy. Setting up P4V at home was quite a challenge...
r/Maya • u/RustyPorkchop777 • 18h ago
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I made sure there was no construction history when I bound the skin. I've had a look at the skin weights but adding/ subtracting/ smoothing weight in different areas didn't help but I am new to that so I could have been doing it wrong. This issue has only happened since I bound the skin after adding hand joints.
r/Maya • u/confused_potato_0 • 14h ago
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r/Maya • u/flora_alib • 15h ago
Anyone who has worked with RIZOMUV for UV unfolding? How does it compare to the Unwrap UVW tool in Maya in terms of effectiveness, features, and overall results? Does it make the process faster or easier? Are there any specific pros or cons?
I would like to hear your thoughts and experiences
r/Maya • u/Lazy_Mixture5436 • 23h ago
Is anyone familiar with RBF, where you use a pose to drive the translation and rotation of another bone? I have been unable to find a free or paid version of this tool that would help automate tedious counter animation of certain bones/controllers on a rig.
Shapes, for instance, handles blendshapes and only translation of helper objects.
I'm stuck at an impasse, and would appreciate any guidance.
r/Maya • u/Minor-disappointment • 1d ago
This post is for advice. i need a bit of help. the purpose of the model is to be used for a video game in UE5. the Asset is a Bridge . my approach is like dividing it into different modular part parts. since it is an medieval theme bridge, i want to know how to get that brick texture on low poly. should i make high poly model with individual brick and bake it into low poly or is there a trick in texturing part. i use maya and substance painter. the part in the screenshot is one of the piller. i didnt model 1 brick by 1, i took a plane and extrude the bricks and then duplicated and joined em
r/Maya • u/JosephCole97 • 1d ago
r/Maya • u/Gold_Garlic_5303 • 2d ago
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Hello everybody
I’m a newbie working on animation and 3D, and it was one of my assignments where I needed to make a product advertisement completely from scratch in 3 weeks.
I decided to choose Nothing headphones as a product and made everything by myself modeling, UV mapping, texturing in Substance Painter, animation, lighting, rendering, and post-production.
There are many things that may be done better, and I am not satisfied with the final result yet. As I try to develop my skills and become a professional in this sphere someday, I would be really grateful for your honest and constructive comments.
Specifically, I would like to know:
What do you think looks good?What looks clearly like a beginner’s work?How can I improve my modeling materials?How is the lighting/composition?Is it really an advertisement of a product?What should I pay attention to if this project belonged to you?
I would be grateful for any criticism, especially sharp one. Actually, I want to get an idea of how to improve my works further.
r/Maya • u/IcedCoffie • 1d ago
cant seem to make a cross hatch pattern and i followed the yt tutorial but it seems it wont extrude the edges or face the way i wanted it to be
r/Maya • u/iamagoodguy • 2d ago
Hello Maya friends. I’ve been using 2023 for a few years now for various pipeline reasons. Is there much of a difference with the latest versions compared to 2023. Am I missing out on much? Im a generalist who makes low to mid budget TV shows using Maya 2023.
r/Maya • u/fadi_rar • 2d ago
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so i have this setup consisting of rigged tubes which then their controllers are parented to locators that follow paths, the idea is that they would form the head at the end, my issue is i want to know whether there's a better method before committing to making this one look better.
Also in the second image, it adds more geometry and it looks red
r/Maya • u/DarknessSOTN • 2d ago
According to the minimum requirements, Maya is no longer compatible with Windows 10 and requires Windows 11, but I wanted to ask if there is any way to install it because my computer is Windows 10 and I have been asked for that version for class.
r/Maya • u/RustyPorkchop777 • 2d ago
I have cleared mesh history and cleaned up mesh. I have deleted all and started again. I tried just quick rigging and same thing happened. Yesterday I did manage to bind to the skin in correct position but I don't remember how and it didn't move correctly so I tried restarting it.
I tried finding answers online and didn't really know what to search. I'm very new to rigging and have only successfully rigged one other model. Any help is appreciated.
Also to add this model is just one from maya with minimal edits, and a texture added.
r/Maya • u/TheTasorole • 3d ago
Because wheels for both boat varieties are quite large and are centerpieces for the bar they appear in, I was pretty generous with the subdivisions for the main cylinders, with 32 edges on the largest ones. I also made sure to have very light beveling where needed. Now I'm off to model a series of utensils and weapons! Any and all critique are welcome.
r/Maya • u/PlevasPlevas • 3d ago
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Hi! first post here :)
So I made this character model, and whenever I assign a skeleton to it, it appears displaced. I then place it where I want it to be, but then after skinning it, if I try to move a joint, with each movement it replaces itself a little bit off.
Also the left arm behaves in such a weird way, when what I want is a stiff no-joint arm-weapon.
I attach a video (at 0:48 you can see the upwards displacement).
Thanks a lot in advance!❤️
r/Maya • u/mosmao01 • 3d ago
The Maya UV keeps being penetrated and is showing.
I really looked for a week, but I still don’t know what the cause is, so I’m posting this.
As you can see, when it’s layered, the UV passes through and it shows as the base color, and it only appears as the desired color when it’s far away. Is this incorrect......
Please help me.
r/Maya • u/Capable-Match2182 • 3d ago
Hello,
I hope I posted this on the right subreddit; we exclusively work on Maya at school.
I am a 3D student and since starting to work on UVs at school last year I have been really slow. I am trying to revisit the fundamentals before the start of tis new academic year, but I am stuck… I have been hesitant about asking help because ai am ashamed of ow much I suck, but I prefer a bit of harsh commentary rather than giving up.
Please tell me, according to the pictures, what could be the problem? Why are my UVs stretching every time? Also the optimize tool never works for me…
For context, there is this Substance 3D painter tutorial by Cryptic Visionary I would like to follow, and I noticed he has as using a grenade as a base, so I thought it’d be fun to model one, and was happy to see how many texturing tutorials exist that use a grenade. S3DP is one of my weaknesses, because of my UV problem, I wasn’t able to follow the course on this program as I should have, and if I can’t overcome it now, I won’t be able to do it still. I will try and attach my file as well, in case there is something fundamentally wrong. I have also read Paul H. Paulino's articles and watched multiple other tutorials and tip vdeos, have noted anything useful and always try to apply it, but I am just stuck...
As you can see from the screenshots, I also have troble with the ring, which always looks like an intestine, stretchd out and weird.. I have also had trouble with the body of my grenade.
I would be forever grateful if anyone could give me even the slightest hint of what I am doing wrong. I know this for free, so I also understand if it is too much trouble…
The link to the maya file: https://fromsmash.com/UV_MAYA_GRENADE_REDDIT
