3D Modeling Triangles

[Junozy (Juno)]

Hi!

I am working on creating models in Blender, however I want to know the best way to lower the amount of triangles in my models to under 10,000 so they can be uploaded to Roblox. At the moment I am working on this cowboy hat (see img below), but when I add subdivision surface it is too many triangles when it actually looks good (when I change the view). So how do I make my models smooth (like other hats on Roblox) w/o going over 10,000 triangles.

2,928 Triangles (S.S. View 2)

11,712 Triangles (S.S. View 3)

There is a big difference, how do I get right in the middle of that? Is there a way to directly change it?

[Aotrou (Shawn)]

It’s called Smooth Shading (what you have now is Flat Shading), and I explained that in this post:

Regarding limit of triangles on a Blender mesh

In Blender 2.79 or earlier version, while in Edit Mode, use Ctrl + F to open the Faces settings, and click Shade Smooth. [image] Also, if you’re new to Blender, use 2.8, it much more intuitive to people who are new with the software.

You could make this look reasonably good with a quarter of the faces you’re using with Smooth Shading

[Junozy (Juno)]

Now it made my hat look like this because Subdivision Surface was being used to make it smooth around the edges. Any fix?

[Aotrou (Shawn)]

Try applying subdivide at 1, and then simplify manually with Dissolve Vertices/Edges/Face (X hotkey to open up the options). Honestly the topology isn’t great so any fix it going to be a good amount of work.

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Additionally, if you’re new to Blender, you should use Blender 2.8 since 2.79 (and earlier) is much more difficult to use. 2.8 is more intuitive to new users and has many more additional features.

[UsernameN00B]

I suppose what Aotrou said is the same thing as making edges soft / hard inside Maya.
Basically atleast inside Maya you can choose if a edge should get hard or smooth lightning cast onto it which is really useful to make a mesh look smoother than it is.

I reckon there should be a similiar feature in Blender which should let you remove some of the edges you currently got and use that to keep your mesh looking smooth.

[SturdyStubs]

There are actually better ways (in my mind to smooth faces.

Here is my method:

So here is the model I am going to start with.

First go over to the object data section on the right side panel.

Under normals tick the auto smooth feature and set the angle to 180 degrees. (You must have the object selected when doing this)

Smooth all selected faces (In most case you will select all faces).

You are almost done. Now comes the most important part of this whole situation to make sure that your faces look as accurate as possible.

Select all edges that you want to make “hard” in edit mode so that it makes a seam in the lighting and basically makes it outline certain parts of the mesh.

Go to the side panel and make edges sharp or click Ctrl + E and move down to Mark Sharp while having your edges selected.

This is what edges with no sharp seams looks like.

This is what edges look like with sharp seams on.

You will be able to use less triangles with this method. Make sure you are modeling correctly as 11k triangles for your hat doesn’t seem like efficiently modeled it. Modeling tutorials should help out.