Topology
How polygons flow across a mesh
Definition
Topology is the arrangement and flow of polygons on a 3D mesh. Good topology consists primarily of quads, with edge loops following the natural curvature of the form — for characters, this means loops around eyes, mouths, joints, and major muscle masses. Bad topology with triangles or n-gons in deforming areas causes pinching, twisting, and shading artefacts.
In production
For a hero character, plan animator-friendly edge loops before sculpting fine detail. Use retopology tools like ZBrush's ZRemesher, the QuadRemesher addon, or manual retopo in Blender to convert dense sculpts into clean, animatable meshes. Edge loops around the mouth typically form concentric rings to support lip-sync blend shapes, while loops at elbows and knees follow an "edge loop butterfly" pattern so the mesh doesn't collapse or pinch at full bend. Poles — vertices with 3 or 5 connected edges instead of 4 — are unavoidable in quad topology but must be placed away from high-deformation zones; a 5-pole sitting mid-cheek or mid-bicep will visibly pinch when the face or arm animates. Maya's "Make Live" combined with the Quad Draw tool is a common manual retopology workflow for faces, while Blender's Poly Build and shrinkwrap modifier serve the same purpose. Bad topology isn't only a deformation problem — it also causes shading artefacts under baked normal maps, since triangulated n-gons in curved areas bake inconsistent normals compared to a clean quad grid.
