I know that there is a general prohibition on models with triangular polys in them, for Poser at least.  I am guessing at some point in the past, Poser didn't handle them well.

Is this still the case? or is it a general modelling principle? or something else?

John :)

No, it's a thing of the past. You can use tris and quads even together, but not polygons of more than 4 points, and you must avoid coplanar polygons.

Triangles are fine.  Long narrow triangles (usually produced by a Boolean
operation in modelers) are not fine.  

Facets should be as "compact" as possible... the closer you can
get to equal sides, the better.

Actually, you can use polygons with more than 4 vertices in Poser versions 6 and above. It's generally not the best way to do things, but it can work for certain situations. The main thing to avoid at all costs with 4+ sided polygons is to have any concave corners.

Um, if it please the court ... may I respectfully disagree?

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Thanks people :) that's pretty much confirmed what I thought, was getting fed up with being told you can't have tris without any actual concrete backup :)

So you can have 4+ sides too, interesting, though I think I will always be uncomfortable using those.

I bet Daz Studio will spoil it though by not being able to handle either :)

John

http://guerrillacg.org/home/3d-polygon-modeling/subdivision-topology-artifacts

In fact, if you import Victoria/Victoria 2, which works perfectly fine in Poser, into Rhino3D, you'll get missing facets because there are some 5-sided polygons in the face and body, and Rhino doesn't handle 5+ sided polygons.  If you try to import into ZBrush, same issue (it will kack when trying to import the obj and will offer to divide the offending polygons into quads and/or tris).

It's pretty hard to work in anything other than tri's without getting coplanar surfaces.

Quote - http://guerrillacg.org/home/3d-polygon-modeling/subdivision-topology-artifacts

fantastic video.

i remember posting this video on this forum already.

if people still dont understand why to not use  it then i dont know.

Quote - http://guerrillacg.org/home/3d-polygon-modeling/subdivision-topology-artifacts

Very fine video, I'll be paying close attention to that one :)

John

Quote -

Quote - No, it's a thing of the past. You can use tris and quads even together, but not polygons of more than 4 points, and you must avoid coplanar polygons.

Um, if it please the court ... may I respectfully disagree?

cheers,
dr geep
;=]

Sorry, of course modern Poser will render them, but they are not allowed for items for sale at DAZ, and may sometimes generate problems for some applications and users.

So if you are modeling for yourself, do what you like, but it¡f it's for sale or others, make them a favor and don't use n-gons, please!

In my opinion, triangles are the most universally compatible, and they don't generate non planar geometry. Use quads if it works to decrease polygon count. Avoid polygons over 4 sides for compatibility and avoid bugs.

I find non-planar geometry really interesting, but in practice they're a pain in the...

Poser handles n-gons ok , but not if they have a concave edge.

I don't think coplanar means what you guys seem to think it means.

Quote - I don't think coplanar means what you guys seem to think it means.

Yeah, you're right, I made a mistake and others used the same word. I meant NONPLANAR.

Quote - > Quote - I don't think coplanar means what you guys seem to think it means.

Yeah, you're right, I made a mistake and others used the same word. I meant NONPLANAR.

Sorry I didn't have anything more useful to contribute. All the good stuff had already been mentioned.

Myself, I'm a bit manic when I model. I completely avoid anything that isn't a quad, and try to use as few poles as possible. I think it may be the effect of an early ZBrushhood trauma.

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - I don't think coplanar means what you guys seem to think it means.

Yeah, you're right, I made a mistake and others used the same word. I meant NONPLANAR.

Sorry I didn't have anything more useful to contribute. All the good stuff had already been mentioned.

Myself, I'm a bit manic when I model. I completely avoid anything that isn't a quad, and try to use as few poles as possible. I think it may be the effect of an early ZBrushhood trauma.

LOL! It's good to be maniac at this!

Inconceivable!
I don't think that word means what you think it means - Iñego Montoya...;)

But I'm not sure what 'coplanar' means...1 sided polygons?

 Coplanar is when all the points lie in the same geometric plane (x, for example), for example, you have 2 triangles that are contiguous in the same plane.

Chisel, for VRML, had an optimization option that  allowed to turn coplanar triangles to quads, that I miss. Hexagon can merge coplanar triangles.

Non-planar is a geometry that its edges intersect with the other edges and not always at their end points. It uses to be a non-euclidean geometry or reflect something in more dimensions that we are representing. In common modeling, it is something bad done.

Talking about strange geometries, here there are some little visual programs that are fun: http://www.geometrygames.org/CurvedSpaces/

Well, fun for people that like this stuff like us, LOL!