Edgeloop Termination Cutting down edgeloops in 3DSMax, Maya, Blender, Truespace etc.

[Animator 0]

If you're a 3D Modeler using a program like Maya, 3DSMax, Blender, Truespace or similar, you are probably already aware of the need for quads (four sided faces) on industry standard models. (e.g. movie or TV animation; games models are an exception for other reasons)

 

Often, where you want to join two meshes (e.g. a hand to a wrist) they don't match up because joining edges / faces are not the same number for each part. This is where edgeloop "termination" comes into play. It is a simple trick to knock out edges from one part so that they two do match up, without creating the widely feared triangles as you do so.

 

Edgeloop Termination is one of those things that is pretty easy for those who have done it for a while, but devilishly hard when you are first learning. Here's a simple workflow to show you how to terminate two edges.

 

 

1. We want to get rid of the two lines shown here.

 

2. Start by making diagonal lines to draw our target edgeloops into the centre.

 

3. Delete the previous edge where the new merge is taking place.

 

4. Delete the remainder of the edgeloop.

 

5. Convert the middle triangles to a single quad.

 

6. Fill in any holes. You are done.

Okay, that's my simple edgelooping "trick" for now. There are other variations on the method. If I get time I will make another tutorial on these shortly, including a way of matching even and odd edges (the above only works in twos)... that will be a somewhat bigger tutorial.

 

For the meantime, I hope someone out there finds this useful. Please give feedback, vote etc if so.

[yordan 10]

Sorry, I didn't understand the step3-Step4 part. Probably the drawings are not enough for a newbie. And of course a non-newbie does not need this tuto.

[Animator 0]

Sorry, I didn't understand the step3-Step4 part.

Hey there.

Which step, 3 or 4? There may be some variations on actual keypresses and sometimes how an edge is added depending on whether you are using Maya, 3DSMax or similar. The process itself is basically universal though.
On step 3, when you delete the two edges, a package like Blender would actually delete faces either side (shown in my diagrams in darker blue as they are holes.) Even if your 3D program does not delete the faces but just the line, just go to the next step 4 and remove the remainder of the edgeloop (e.g. downwards) This is pretty much the core part where you are actually getting rid of the unwanted lines. The parts before and after are to keep everything as quads (no triangle faces).

Yes, professional non-newbie modelers should know this stuff (you'd think so), though it's amazing how many out there seem to more know "of" termination better than they can "do" termination. As modelers are often in a tight deadline, this is sort of a formula I made for a quick method. I've seen a few other methods though none that are as fast as this one.