CGTalk - To edit poly or edit mesh.

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TheWriter

08-09-2003, 06:46 AM

Looking at most tutorials, seems edit mesh is almost always used over edit poly mode. Though I have been told to avoid edit mesh at all costs as it adds extra triangles to work with. Am I correct in assuming that edit poly modifiers came later and that is why most tutorials are showing one method over the other?

credmond

08-09-2003, 07:12 AM

use edit mesh when you want to work on low poly models and you care about every face and how it is exactly triangulated

otherwise use edit poly for most everything

edit poly is the newer tool and it has lots more power than edit mesh and handles things a lot cleaner than edit mesh

however it is slower than edit mesh so you will see people put an edit mesh modifier on top of their stacks to speed them up

Onno

08-09-2003, 09:15 AM

Hehe, that first sentence didn't make stuff very clear credmond. I think you wanted to say:
'use edit poly when you want to work on low poly models and you care about every face and how it is exactly triangulated'

Anyways: I always work with editable polies. Why? Because of the tools. You have a hundred times more tools, like grow, shrink, loop etc. with edit. poly.
For low poly models many people prefer edit. mesh because of the trianglization (that's not english and I don't care :p) i.e. the showing of all edges, but I think it would be handier to just make the model with edit. poly, convert to edit. mesh, show all edges, convert back to edit. poly and you have all your fancy tools and you have all your edges visible for optimal editabilization. :)

Edit mesh doesn't add triangles... it shows them, where as you didn't see them in editable poly.

Rivendale

08-09-2003, 07:12 PM

sorry, double post;)

Rivendale

08-09-2003, 07:14 PM

In my opinion Editable mesh is just a relic from the past that sooner ar later will go to the grave. The reson that most tutorials use the Editable mesh method is because many of them where written before Editable poly was introduced in MAX. The only time I use it now is when I have to apply and Edit Mesh modifier, something that won't be necessary when Discreet decides to add an Editable poly modifier.
I use Epoly for my game models also partly because the smoothing you get is cleaner. You can control the triangulation in Epoly too btw.
:)

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