There is no such thing as too many topology tutorials. Good stuff!

I think that when rigging, adding additional bones is often very useful, for example having the knee joint as 2 bones, with the kneecap being a bone on its own. With this, it's possible to reduce the ugly deforms. I'd even go as far as to add mid bones to allow muscles to flex, especially the butt! - engines can handle more bones than we tend to throw at them.

when you thought that asserting your dominance with a T pose was just a meme, but turns out was way more important than you realized.

I never actually thought about the t-pose in this way before. But since I often conceptualize my characters with the arms down, I can see why I have problems with higher arm angles. This concept applies to 3D and 2D rigs, I'd say.

I think you need to show the actual theory behind what makes a joint bend, like why you need certain polygons that can collapse in on themselves and the general rule of thumb around that.

_High poly characters hate this secret trick!!_

Wow, I actually learned this on my own way back. Not bragging, it's just really encouraging to find out something I learned by myself was actually the right thing for once and not just another bad habit I'll need to unlearn later. 😳 Sometimes it's almost overwhelming trying to figure so much stuff out. Thank you! 😁

Cool tutorial, I would advice you to look into shape keys though. The first step of adding extra loops around joints is a good step, but the second step where you change the topology on the inner elbow can create lighting and texturing problems for you down the line. Shape keys allow you to deform your mesh in certain ways. It's used to correct pinching, like in this tutorial, but can also be used to get your characters to flex their muscles, or deform any part of your character's body to sell the impact of a punch for example.

Awesome tutorial, I assume it's a little light when it comes to covering the "art" that is topology, but as a beginner this was a lot more digestible than some hour long video haha :P Thanks guy, and have a good day! :)

a very instructive and informational video. These are things a lot of beginners struggle with in retopology. I remember I tried to learn Retopology without knowing why I'm doing it and this video teaches exactly that. Thank you so much!

i wish i had this video when i was first starting out and struggling with topology for low poly deformations (specifically elbows and knees). i spent hours trying to find a good guide, but in the end it was google images that led me to the technique you used for the elbow. this video would have saved me so much time; it’s short, but it gets straight to the point and is very clear. incredible video, keep up the great work!

a quick guide for people struggling with this is: in places where topology must stretch create a circle, and in places where topology must contract add extra cuts, so for example your outer knee must have a low poly circle the size of that knee, and the inside of your knee should have 3 loopcuts the size of the knee, sides dont matter because sides dont stretch/contract.

0:08 half life scientist scream SFX 😅

I actually learned this from a Mario melee character break down video ages ago, has helped me a lot.

Great advice,I remember watching a video that showed which types of topology pixar uses for different body types (elbow, shoulder etc.) to make them deform nicely. Sadly I think it has been privated

and then there's me, who wants to separate all the limbs so i don't need to have funky bends

Oh I can't believe it was that easy lol First time using Blender and I'm making a PS1 styled low poly character. Adding a loop cut to the legs and adjusting the topo for the shoulder/elbow basically fixed my posing situation. Now I can move their legs & arms naturally without it distorting horrifically. The polycount increased a bit ofc, but it's worth it for the results.

I like the fix for the elbow joint, because it's basically just remembering that the elbow pit exists.

Really helpfull! Have search tips for this kind of issues and have found at least too long videos and your's just solved that so quickly, thanks 🔥

Me when I'm having to draw anatomy in my art. Remember: art imitates life. I don't care how abstract we're talking, its pretty much always going to be the case when we're talking people or animals. They still have to behave correctly, and in the case of a 3D game, you can only be so abstract.

For elbows and knees, I've found a bone that rotates halfway between the upper and lower portions actually solved all of my issues. It seems like it should work the same as just weight painting it half and half, but it actually works very differently.

Wow, when I did 3D work in my course it filled me with unsatisfied frustrations. I think I'm a step towards getting my head around working with polygons.

This is really helpful thanks Thomas

I'm not even making games yet and I've already saved this for when I eventually do. This will be a fantastic help before the problem even arises

You my guy just won a new happy subscriber :D The elbow thing made my life way easier now. thanks a lot my guy ;)

Bruh. Such a good concise video. ty more of this plz!

This is really good but could you enable this one thing where it shows what buttons ur clicking? It would be really helpful in learning these shortcuts myself :)

Great tutorial on 3D articulation !!!

Your a wizard Thomas. Subbed!

After years of Blender use but being really bad at creating human bodies, I am seriously learning a lot here. Thank you so much

Thank you so much! This thing is literally the biggest trouble I've had while rigging

I came to exactly the same conclusions as you did, sturying rigging and skinning. Expecially the shoulder area, and rings around the shoulder blade/pectorial area. It's amazing how few artists make it that way. They never tried to raize the character's arm I guess

와우! 번역은 기대도 안했는데 예상외로 좋은 번역덕분에 좋은 영상 잘 보고갑니다. 감사해요 구글! 그리고 토마스!

One thing I've never been able to figure out when it comes to joint topology is how to add more detail. Generally, you want the areas around a joint which stretch and compress to only contain edges that flow perpendicular to the bones, but what if you need to add more edge loops in the opposite direction? The best solution I've found is to use a bone with a "stretch to" constraint in place of what would be a single loop of faces, such as the front of the arm @3:45

for the longest time I thought this tutorial was dumb and NEVER sat through it, until I moved on from low poly stuff to models that have fully formed bodies, and this came in handy

The thumbnail to this video alone was enough to help me. Big thanks!

"It looks weird" Spoken like a true professional.

Nice video man! Thanks

Can't believe you only have 18.4k subscribers with such s brilliant short tutorial, thank you :D

I used to use Blender a lot, like more than a decade ago. I could never figure out how to rig character properly, though. No one ever told me it was just a matter of topology. Very informative!

This was so helpful, it made my model not look like trash

I learned a lot about this from examining PS1 models, and how they often had tricks to prevent deformation errors, which simply can't be done in larger levels of detail, because they worked mostly by using the topology that wasn't there, in ways that would always pinch when extra topology was present. This is why modern games have complicated systems of correction morphs, hundreds of extra bones for deforming very small parts of models and so forth... not so much to add new amounts of detail, but simply to correct the erroneous behaviors that more detailed models create that aren't present in older models. Good topology for animation isn't always what people call "good topology."

Always nice to see a fellow South African in my recommendations

for elbow you ant 3 loops around the joint and a loop around the elbow point you can use inset to make it to keep its round shape

recently extracted some assets from a old arcade game and they all had bad topology on there knees it took hours to fix every model 1 by 1 xD but it was worth it cuz those are some very nice looking models overall for character I like and the very old style is just a nice vibe . but damn had to fix way too many knees

I have never made a model before in my life but I still ended up watching this all the way through at 2am

Doesn't joining with j only make edges without splitting the faces? I always used the knife tool instead

It's a totally new way for me..and my character will be looking a little more natural now.. thankyou for making this video.. it's brought a whole new level to my character animation 🍓🍓🍓🍈

Good stuff!

Hey can you post the keyboard shortcuts or theenu selection you used in the process? The joining and fixing I haven't seen before and I have no idea how you did

20/10 video, thank you so much. You are a wizard, Thomas

Neat! I personally don't have access to topology or 3d modelling services, which gives a lot more control, but good lord it's tedious to hand adjust each vertice of each triangle...

a great video! short and clear!

how do you design the topology's so its made of quads when you need triangles to fix the initial problem ?

The video is good. As for this solution there are different improvements that could be made generally the topology is best to follow the flow of the mesh. By this with the shoulders I would have an area outlining the mass of the shoulder.

I don't need this tuto, but I have a deep respect for the technique, that's art!

I followed the tutorial but everything still breaks? I ever tried adding more lopps to the arm as a whole but it still didn't work. It's pretty much just cylinders for the arms which i thought would make it easy but no it's still not working, why?

It's so adorable to see young people struggling with the same problems I had 20 years ago.

What if you have a really high poly model will this be a issue?

They have made things easier in 10 years :) When I was modelling and making characters I had to skin the character manually. Also we added extra bones to help with deforming the character so not to get those ugly cuts.

I love You. - Patrick Star

I often struggle to choose the right way of topology. Back in school I learned to have a more muscle structured topology. Meaning for the shoulder there is an edge loop going down to the lower chest part. There is a good picture on wiki polycount, showing the two different methods. You can find it if you search for PiorOberson_shoulder-compare.jpg I am kind of stuck what way to use. Is one of them two wrong? If so, which one? Are they both right? Studying Fortnite 3D models for example using the topology you showing in the video. This means, this type of topology seems correct and good, but am I missing something out this way? I'm so confused and my head is spinning around this topic so much I'm stuck.

I usually just use shape keys to fix mesh deformation

Very late, but there's another option I prefer to quickly merge vertices, where you can basically just click and drag one vert to the other one, and it merges with that other one automatically. To do it, there's an "auto merge" icon by the XYZ mirror symbol. If you turn that on and turn snapping on, setting snapping to vertices, and you press w until your selection tool is the gray cursor icon next to four arrows, you can click and drag to move verts in one motion, the snapping will connect the vert you have to the one you hover over, and the auto merge will determine that the verts are in very close proximity and will then connect them. This sounds like a lot, I know, but if you have to deal with a ton of vert merging ops in succession, it can be very helpful, and regardless, knowing all the options can make things way easier if you use them right

Very good tutorial!

No, It's because of weight painting. if you weight painted it properly, it would actually look good.

It’s basically trying to mimic how the muscles, tendons would be connected as a whole. I get it. I didn’t study any form of anatomy but I get it nonetheless. Great tutorial!

First time I actually could follow and understand a blender tutorial video 💀

Nice work, i like it 👍

It looks so much like a suit of armor joints.

This is a great tip, thank you!

I need this is to fix my giant Cthulhu looking squid

i need help with th good topology for the connection between thigh and hip, it's always the place i have problem the most

It can all be solved with more polygons with movement bias assigned, and a volume distribution algorithm. You know, how the actual human body works.

Nice. But what do you do with highpoly meshes? I got a nice humanoid mesh, with arms consinstig of ~40+ loops already. (They also strech badly). I also tried weight painting, but its very tedious.

It isn't just about topology - it's also skin weights. Those are just as important! Can't leave everything up to automatic processes - gets you halfway there. Nice simple demo on joint loops, though. Teaching the good word of topology.. except you misuse the word often here. Geometry and topology and density are different! The 3D world is confusing in that many words have been used to mean the same thing. It's almost being Americanized (muddled with word misuse) as it's being developed, lol. This is a good crash course overall and I appreciate the simplicity in the character example, nice video!

I saw you use the loop tools Add-On and tried what you did with it, but it just fills the cuts I made in my model. How did you do it? Please reply ASAP with a step-by-step process of how you got loop tools to work for you.

1:21 Wow, that looks very trippy!

Thanks!

Aside from topology, apply Blendshape or capsule/muscle

If you're making a ps1-style game, you'll notice looking at classic models that most joints only use a single edge loop on joints, which is why animations were usually more simple, to hide the pinching of the models. Ideally you want to aim for somewhere between 500-600 polys for an authentic-feeling character and let the textures fill in most of the details.

A-pose = character does mostly everyday movements like walking, sitting, talking T-pose = character does a lot of action movements like jumping, climbing, hanging Just my opinion. 😁

Didn't know James and Lily had another son named Thomas other than Harry

Thank you so much sir!

Aaaah the infamous magic elbow triangle

Awesome video

Is it bad that I just prefer to smooth things out with shape keys instead of using topology?

Well... subscribed to your channel!

In far cry 2 you can see that happen when the character does his iconic “healing animation”.

Amazing tutorial

I have a question, how do I make it where when the elbo bends, the inside of the elbo stays the same and the outside of the elbo stretches so when the arm is completely bent 180°, the elbo is like a U shape. I’m trying to make a roller coaster game where you can bend the tracks and Everytime I bend the track, the inside bent part gets thinner but I want it to stay the same where the track can be able to bend like a U shape

It's a lot better but it's still pretty bad through parts of the desired range of motion. What more can be done?

So that why i feel like i have hair in my armpit bc my polygon are all mess up

Best tutorial for my worst characters

This is great. 💯

Respect, learned something new

This is a good video. That’s what the Bridge option is for with LoopTools.

is there a video for modeling polygonal character?

Finnaly i video i can watch to sleep but good video

What tool do you use in minute 2:00 ?