Optimizing Geometry for a Reduced Triangle Count

All of the chapters leading up to this final chapter have been reinforcing the same ideas. Each chapter has been laying out the steps to good quad-based topology. The reason we chose this workflow was to ensure that we had a model that would be easy to work with throughout the model creation process. From deformations to UV unwrapping, quad-based topology will give you the cleanest and easiest result when done right. In this chapter, we are going to be breaking those rules.

This chapter is going to be all about reducing the triangle count on the models that we made in the last three chapters. We will start by learning why we might want to break our topology rules in the first place. Next, we will talk about some of the tools we will use to help us optimize. Then, we will go straight into optimizing a hard-surface model and finish with a character model.

In this chapter, we will be learning about the following subjects:

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