So tell me about Quads...
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I build race car mods for rFactor and I'm always hearing about Quads... Quads this, Quads that... It needs to be Quads. I go to my game making software (Max) and when I make some thing quadrified, it looks just like a Sketchup model. Nice 4 corner faces, the main difference being their Quads don't have to be planar like Sketchup's... When I import the quadrified model into Sketchup it gets triangulated... People in the game that I work on are very disparaging to Sketchup in it's abilities to work in the game environment . The two main reasons being UV Mapping and Quads.
One of my compatriots in the game modding world Dave Noonan, even wrote this program to use sketchup to edit and build cars and tracks. I think it does a great job and I think it puts Max to shame in terms of useability, for our needs at least, which are fairly topical.
I never notice any difference in playability or looks between the triangulated/smoothed SU model and the quadrified Max model.
So what's the big deal? why do ThomThom's Quad Tools not suffice? I understand he has explained that they are not real Quads. Is it that real Quads are procedural? Instead of being a kind of pointmap? What's the love affair with Quads? and why does it matter?
P.S.
If you search for the word quadrified I'm like #2 on google. Isn't that funny? I don't know much of anything about it, but I'm what Google thinks is an authority because I wrote a tutorial. -
could il help in your case?
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/quadrifyall
http://populate3d.com/ -
I'm not asking how... If you look at the second link in my post, I wrote an extensive tutorial on how to quadrify a triangulated model. I'm asking why? What's the big deal about them?
And that is a really kool second link. Thanks. I wonder if it would do car bodies... I'll have to find out.
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Blender also has Tris to Quads, one can easily convert an SU model to quads. There's a whole lot more to quads though than just the mesh. There's also different ways of creasing and smoothing that is part of quad modeling. Others could explain a lot more, I'm just a noob with that, but just know that there's a whole other language (subdivisions, loops, etc.) to it that you don't even see when you work in SU.
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I would say it mostly to do with with UV mapping and texture mapping and also to do with deformations in animations.
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Quads relax uv maps better than tris
Quads have better topology and this makes loop selection easier.
Subdivision is quads results in lighter meshes.
All quads are made of 2 tris. It is just the app that display only the quad.
Quads scores higher in scrabble than tris.
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Good stuff Rich... On the modeling side I understand this. That reasoning is sound. What makes the game environment like it so much more? The lighter meshes?
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I think it's just about usability - as far as I know, the game environment treats everything as tris.
SU doesn't export models in a nice, quadrilateralised form, since it was never made with quad-based modelling in mind. A face with some rounded corners, some holes cut, and maybe some arching edges may seem simple in SU, but actually translates to a lot of tris that export in whatever arbitrary way SU decides, making it difficult to edit in Maya, Max, Blender, etc. Quadrilateralising the mesh helps, as it arranges the tris nicely, but even so, they are still tris.
The main reasons I like quads:
-Easily editable. Dragging vertices around on a quad mesh creates predictable results. ngons act strangely in this situation.
-Edge loops. Edge loops are a huge part of most modeling applications, and allow for easier selection, division, and readability. tris and ngons do not produce good edge loops.
-Deformation. Quads deform predictably and smoothly, making them much more presentable in an animated mesh.
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