Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 9.51 Remove the navel detail.
It'snotlikelythere'smuchelsewecanreduceinKila,buthaveagoodlookaroundanyway.
Examine Grae, too, to be sure, before we continue on to check the triangulation.
Triangulation
All engines (game engines and even Maya's own rendering engine) convert polygons to
triangles at render time. You may see a “quad” in the viewport, but look closely and you'll
see that the square is already divided into two triangles, whether there's a line being drawn
there or not. For quads, Maya is making the division decision on-the-fly, depending on the
planarity of the polygon's surface—and this might not be the decision that suits the surface
of the model.
It's a good idea to do a pass on the model, slowly turning it around, looking to make sure
that the quad decisions don't create concavities or bulges that are inappropriate to the ana-
tomy. In those cases, you can manually create the desired edge with the Split Polygon tool.
Or, if an edge already exists, turn it with the Flip Polygon Edge tool.
Note
Because we are only splitting or flipping edges, the UVs will not be affec-
ted. If we were to delete polygons or dramatically alter the topology, the
UVs would need to be tweaked or reapplied.
The main area containing some of these problems is Kila's face.
1. Hide the hair geometry so that you can concentrate on the face's topology.
2. Look in from the angle demonstrated in Figure 9.52 , left. You will see a concave
face causing the cheek to look angular.
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