If you're wanting to learn everything you need to know to make Beautiful Low Poly Characters in Blender, Check this out: thomaspotter.g... Learn the EASY Workflow to Create Any Character in Blender - signup.thomasp...
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! 😁
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.
Ya but how to handle it in UE4/5? Im working with multiple people's animations that dont have a key for that elbow bone. So what is the fastest solution? If my Armature has extra elbow bone, do I really need to import every animation in Blender, add elbow key frames, export back to UE? Because thats what I have been having to do so far. And it slows me down because Ive changed character designs 4 times (and thus need to redo anims). I have Auto Rig Pro. But dont see a way to bulk add keyframes to other anims for my elbow bone. And cant use drivers > dont export to UE.
I've never heard of this. So if I'm imagining this correctly, if you have an armature of three connected bones that go from top to bottom, you take the middle one and rotate it on the z axis 180 degrees? Or are the bones all disconnected and the middle bone is rotated 90 degrees on the y axis?
@@wege8409 Mine is like an upper arm bone connected to the lower arm bone. But loner arm bone has a child bone. So the hierarchy is not 3 bones in a row, only 2 in a row, + a child for detail control (adjust only weights on the forearm crease, not upper arm). But I forget, I think the child bone (on the forearm) uses a copy rotation of the fore or upper arm bone. (Thats the important part. So when the forearm bends to make an elbow crease, then the child bone is told to rotate and pull the muscle in/out (the specific weights).)
Replying to myself. I found out that UE4/5 does have drivers like Bender (formulas to rotate bones based on other bones) called Pose driver in the AnimBP. So if you export an FBX from Blender, their drivers will not be saved. But if you import the FBX mesh into UE, then you have the mesh, then need to recreate a Pose driver.
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.
@@ThomasPotter UE4/5 does. But Ive asked this a few times: anyone know how to use this type of shapekey in UE5?: have the shapekey (morph target) be formula activated by any animation that does elbow bend? (I believe the code is needed in AnimBP > if elbow bone reaches _ rotation, then activate morph. But idk the exact code.)
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
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
All of these were taught to us in college where I majored Animation and Game Development... But when I was grouped with older students in our thesis, they preferred the not T-posed model. Everything was off and not what I learned. I potentially could have focused on programming like what I do at my job now but... Hmmm... Oh well.
If you want a good example in a big title, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. IT IS SO BAD. I noticed it immediately at the time when the game came out. Those joints become paper thin, elbows, shoulders, knees...
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?
homie I am BEGGING you to find an overlay that shows off your key inputs; as someone who's comin' in as a complete newbie I wanna put this knowledge to practice but it's so hard when you have to do ten minutes of research to figure out commands for a ten second long stretch of video. 😩
Someone show this to the FFXIV team responsible for character models and the horrible deformations while (custom) GPosing 😂. But no, seriously, this is awesome!
my model has way more polygons with good topology and I still get horrible deformation and artifacts I've been messing with the weight painting but it's taking forever Idk how to fix it HELP!!!
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.
Having twist bones really helps too … an extra smaller bone inside the main bone that can usually be rotation constraint to the bone above it in the hierarchy which fixes lots of bending and rotation deforms.
In the industry what people usually do is define the hardness of a bone, and adjust it to its needs , defining what bends and what doesn't. While adding bones, tris and more can be a solution, its not the correct most efficient way. Of course, this is in big companies. In indies, people just do what ever they see fit.
@@IANDURBECK Indies and pro's share the same technology, engines, and methods though. There is no real way to affect how hard a bone is physically, you can only spread the weight of a vertex across bones. My point is that sometimes its better to have actual control rather than just setting a weight on a vertex - a thigh with armour for example would require 100% bone weights on the armour and variable bone weights on the fleshy bits... with a single bone that armour can only move in certain ways - as a separate bone it could adjust to the leg movement far better, just with some minor tweaks... like have the armour keep a tiny amount of momentum. We see professional rigging looking like shit all the time, it's what makes me preach so much about adding more control points.
More importantly though, it seems to me the joints should be where, ya know, actual joints go in the human body. Shoulder joints aren't buried dead center, surrounded by muscle. They're right at the outer edge of the shoulder, no matter how muscular your figure. Elbows are the same. The joint literally sticks out of the muscle, with only a thin layer of skin and tendon between it and daylight. If your characters aren't bending where they're supposed to, none of this is going to work. To render bodies in motion, you need to take a good look at internal anatomy, not just external stuff.
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.
@@ThomasPotter Yeo, the same is true for tail for example (being straight and not curved), or pronation-supination position. It's amazing how similar my conclusions to yours, though I deduced them by myself, but never had any external validation
Just to argue for A-pose. The reason you would use an A-pose is that the volume of the shoulder is easier to sculpt and rig at that angle but only if your character doesn't use the full range of motion. Both T and A have pros and cons and it depends on the artists preference and style
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! :)
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.
How to use this type of shapekey in UE5? Meaning how to retarget an anim, and in UE5 have the shapekey (morph target) be formula activated by any animation that does elbow bend? (I believe the code is needed in AnimBP > if elbow bone reaches _ rotation, then activate morph. But idk the exact code.)
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!
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
I remember seeing that myself and what was done with the elbow was similar except I think they collapsed the large polygons on the front into a horizontal line and put constraining loop cuts above and below it. The essential principle being to have as few polygons as possible on the collapsing side and double or triple that on the side that stretches.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
It's always nice to see content to improve. But at 2:48 you didn't showed the end result. Hopefully that wasn't the end result. Also 5:22 That's not a good solution to have better topology. I'm curious if you have the skills to even teach a course like your vid description says, because your artstation page indicate the contrary mate.
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.
Cheers man, was struggling with weird elbow deformation and had this idea but wasn't sure if it was viable. The inner elbow trick is a small but satisfying thing too
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. 😁
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.
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!
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."
Anyone know the code to match morphs to the bone angles of any animations? (I guess this would be like a Driver in Blender. But in UE4/5 this code would go in the AnimBP.)
The fasted way is to put a ball in center of where the ugle deformation is. Make it slightly smaller than the elbow so it doesn't stick out, after remove you're armature and unparent. Right after join the elbow points to the model and set the armature again. And voila no ugly deformations
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!
oh this brings up memories, thats how we did it in the old days :D i figuered stuff like this out 2002 by break down games like wc3, blizzard was amazing at optimizing back then.
Yes, enforcing A-pose (or T-pose, A-pose is better) will help and caring for the orientation of your topology can fix your issue. Although, if you need to keep it low poly, I would suggest looking into shape keys as they can keep the same poly count while properly altering the "bend"; It is more work, but it's also an option. Also, you're not teaching proper edge flow. An elbow that bends will have a face in the middle, a triangle on both the ends with extrusions making the shape look like an elongated X. All the piece is missing after that is a loop cut in the middle of the square. That is your elbow. It is the correct and proper edge flow for the outside. The inside is a different story. I will hold back, my comment is already too long.
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
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
Sorry I dont agree but it does start off well. As soon as I see a triangle being used for deformation, I feel that the wrong advice is being given to people. Triangles an on a rare occasion be used, BUT not for deformation.
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!
