Quads, Edge Loops, and Joints

Rule number one when modeling organic characters for animation: triangles are right out.

When working with animation in which armatures and other structures will be deforming your character’s mesh, everything simply works better with quads. You will almost certainly be using Subsurf modifiers on your models, too, which likewise produce better results with quads. If you’ve been modeling with triangles exclusively, this may take some getting used to.

Figures 5.23 and 5.24 show the Beast with both triangles and quads. You wouldn’t think it would make much of a difference because quads are just two triangles with a concurrent edge, right? Figures 5.25 and 5.26 show a close-up of the Beast with his arm raised and the ...

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