Thread by @delaneykingrox

1) Okay, lemme just fucking bury this #3dart #gameArt myth right here and right the fuck now.

Quads are just two triangles with a hidden edge. In a game engine they are... wait for it... two triangles.

Lets talk modelling in quads...

For the very sake of fuck

2) that hidden edge is still the fuck there in your 3d app.

Make a quad, move two opposite verts up. Voila, it folds, one way or another. That hidden edge is there... and it is determined by THE SHORTEST DISTANCE between the verts.

3) whatever the fuck orientation that edge is when you export it to your engine is where the triangles lay.

You either control that fucking bastard edge or let the exporter pick backed on distance.

4) to force that edge to run the way you want means the model will

A) deform and fold the way you want

B) vertex colors run the way you want

In other words, you are in motherfucking control.

5) if you just export quads, you haven't got a fucking clue what way your edges run.

Good luck with that.

6) anyone, I repeat, anyone who tells you to avoid triangles in your game mesh should not be someone you listen to for any advice on games art.

No, wait, punch them in the face for spreading bullshit to students.

7) you keep a mesh in quads if you want to use subdivision surfaces.

That is because the algorithm ignores the hidden edge orientation for making the division. Quads become quads.

Subdivide a triangle and you get triangles which do not give an even surface

8) only leave a mesh in quads of you do not care about the orientation because they are flat, do not use vertex lighting or vertex color and do not deform.

9) and triangles in your subdivision mesh won't always kill you. Gollum had tris in his subdiv mesh. Bay Raitt pointed to them on a big fucking screen at GDC just to bust this myth too.

10) GAMES ARE MADE FROM TRIANGLES.

11) oh but Delaney, what about subdivision in game?

In Unreal It is faster to pre subdivide your mesh before importing it rather than do it in the shader. You also get the benefit of controlling your subdivision focusing where you need density.

Unreal subdivision is triangles.

12) Use triangulation. Be gay. Do crimes.

Turn on "show/advanced/mesh edges" and ooooooh fuck a duck, everything is in TRIANGLES. How did that happen?

Do NOT use 5+ vert polygons, ever. Because the invisible edges are hard to predict.

And it will cause zbrush and mudbox to shit itself.
Mudbox has a max vertex valence limit (number of edges coming off a single vert) that will crap out if you feed it polys.
Polys are taco bell

And I am done.

Mastering triangle placement and orientation a basic artist requirement. So is coffee, y'all.

ko-fi.com/dellak

Keeping your mesh in quads helps ring and loop selections whilst you are modelling. But once you are close to done, you triangulate, then work those edges.

In Maya and Max, you can display hidden edges, which lets you see but not interact with the triangles, and does not interfere with your loop and quad selection.

'Triangulate' locks them in by turning them from invisible to legit edges. That fucks up loop selection.

Look, this is one of my meshes. Notice that she is made from TRIANGLES

And here is her high res capture mesh being made in ZBRUSH it is in QUADS. Because it is a subdivision surface.
BUT... her bake mesh is decimated in decimation master before importing to substance painter for the bake.

So my high res bake mesh is in triangles too.

This mesh is mostly in quads because it is hard surface and those quads are coplanar (flat). Note triangles used under bowl.

Incidentally that one horizontal split in the stem above the freize holds vertex color for blending in moss.

Here is some awesome Gears of War meshes passing through decimation master to make the highres bake mesh. (Source: zbrush documentation)

See? Even the high res is in triangles when we bake shit.

Mike Kime showing you how it's done in Gears III. Looky look, triangles in his export mesh.

To not have to care about edge orientation is to have LOTS of small quads. But that means:
A) more verts to the vertex shader.
B) more verts in mem
C) verts x bone assignment
D) you are more likely to be falling into quad overdraw pits, burning processing on data you dont need

In this example, there is no need for the 4 verts that get welded to the arm joint.
Trivial? It all adds up.

We had thousands of characters on screen at once on the Bigworld demos I made in the 90s. I got a job at Ubisoft off of that feat.

It all adds up.