The only problem I'm having with 3d modeling is that I can't 3d model

I could only imagine how strange it would be if randomly the character I’m playing as gets the most unholy squish in their back.

I think an important thing in 3D modeling is keeping the volume consistent. For instance when you bend your finger you see the first segment get wider, but your fingers overall volume stays the same.

Enable "preserve volume" on the armature modifier. There are similar options in most game engines, once you have imported it. It is great for clothing too 🙂

Another point to prove that there is no difference between medieval blacksmiths and today's 3D modelers. They both also look at a thing which emits light all day.

14th century game devs be like:

Another way around this problem is to use blend shapes, I think they're called (I'm a little rusty) - where you can define how you want the geometry to behave while in the "bent" shape. You can then map the blend shapes to animations to either supplement or replace the animation.

weight painting also affects it greatly. using the auto weight paint in blender often gets you weird results where your limbs might bend and twist parts of the torso when moving them. 0:27 that vertex sticking out on the left could be fixed by giving the hand bone greater weight on it than the finger bone. anyways, great explanation

I love your videos man. I love the freshness, the freedom you give yourself when it comes to the topics. This one in particular really made me think of rig geometry in a way I hadn't yet. I'm not a 3d modeler but I'm getting into software for 2d animation that deals with meshes and rigs, and this video made me realize some stuff. Thank you.

If you don't wanna merge verts, thus creating poles at the joints, another option is fanned loops, where there are those same 3 or 5 or 7 loop cuts around the limb, but the edges on the inside of the joint are closer together. This is a technique i actually picked up from a from a professionally made character model ripped from a game. But on the other hand, i think that the joints are one place where poles can be more of a help than a hinderance. Another thing one can do, but i haven't seen done often, especially in the game-dev world, probably more common in animation though, are double-jointed knees and elbows; basically having an extra bone at the knee or elbow and thus two points of rotation, that makes the deformation look significantly more natural, because that's kinda how knees (and elbows) work.

Another technique to mitigate deforming is combining with blend shapes, so as the joint moves the blend shape counters the undesired pinching or kinking, you can also make muscles flex with this

thank you for making this video i knew about adding loop cuts but i didn't know about the merging of the vertices thing i guess it's more things to keep in mind for my next project

if im not mistaken, there is also weight paint that can help make a more realistic joint

Also move the bone closer to the inner joint so the inner vertex moves less when bending while the outer joint can still get the nice smooth bend from the added outer vertex's.

by the way you can manually modify and correct the deformed shape then save the deformation data in shape keys so it looks way natural while animating.. i feel like it's better to manually edit it the way you want . you can check the pose shape keys video in blender studio rigging tools course , this part is for free and i hope it might help !

I liked the reference to the Chain Mail. Usually when trying to build something in the digital world its often a good idea to look for examples in the physical

There's also the technique of setting up a blend shape to "fix" the geometry as it bends. You can even set up a driver between the blend shape and the angle constraint on the joint, so that it blends automatically the more the angle of rotation incresases :)

This makes me start to think about ragdolls sometimes looking weird

There's also the trick of not connecting the inside of the bend so they clip into each other, have one side be bigger so it hides the smaller side

I want to say; I love watching you videos Garbaj because I am a game developer my self and your videos help out a lot on giving different perspectives on solving certain problems in video games. It is such a pain in the butt making 3d models for a game because of animation and getting it to looking right.These types of videos are just so helpful. Thank you

nice video, i love your short vids explaining the work of a gamedev

This was something I struggled with in college, and while I did not nourish my skills with 3D over 2D Pursuits, it came to my understanding over the years that 3D Graphics or animation have as much to do with understanding physics as it does with conveying motion like we see in the real world, minus the exaggeration.

This helps so much, I have recently started 3D modelling and I started game dev at the beginning of 2022

Thank you! I can’t wait to start 3D modeling and this is incredibly nifty~

Weight painting and shape keys are also extremely helpful.

The armor example is more if you had each limb as a static mesh and just used an elbow guard mesh to cover the gaping hole in the topology

im new to 3d modeling and your channel is the best (imo) informative yet easy to digest

ive been looking for a solution to this exact issue for a few weeks now thanks man

New solution, have a bean (I'm talking to you dani)

I recently stumbled onto the channel Bracer Jack, he has a really good video on low poly hand modeling where he gets into modeling with animation in mind to minimize unwanted deformation

Remember that you can use blend shapes to maintain volume as well. You can also rig another bone in there too with a constraint on it to make it scale and shrink depending on the angle and rotation of the bones around it preserving volume through the rig itself instead of mesh based things like the blendshapes.

i was literally telling a friend about this yesterday when he was having issues with something he was working on. gonna have to save this one for the future to save me time when explaining it to people

Thanks for not cliffhanging us with the Gun Run clip.

The way i got around this was by making a little cover section between the joint and then butting the joint back together so you dont see it. If youve ever seen an articulated bus, same kind of principle.

This is why topology is super important. Placement of joints on the bones can affect the results. Alos, weight painting can be tweaked a bit. Plus, adding twist bones, deformation compensation bones, and/or even maybe blend shapes that are applied based on rotation of bones. So many methods to use, you can get pretty creative. It also depends on what is worth it. What is the range of movement the character is expected to make? What is easily visible? What is the cost (time needed, performance hit, etc)? Everything is a balancing act. In the end, the effort always shows

Love ur vids and they are super helpful

I can’t really say much since I’ve only done rigging once but weight painting can as well help how much you want a bone to control a specific area.

Really like when you do this kind of videos

400k congratulations 🎉👏🏼😁

Also tick 'preserve volume' in the armature modifier.

*Animators* 🤝 *Stoners* _not wanting joints to get squished_

I personally just bypass this problem by creating all the body parts I want to animate as separate objects, which results in my characters looking like puppets. A lot of really old videogame models are made this way.

A video about lying on the ground and how it could mess with collision if lying in narrow areas or on slopes and stairs

There are a couple of papers describing algorithms to improve this. It would probably be worth a try to implement one of them. The one I found recently by Disney describes one that runs in real-time.

Long time lurker, first time commenter. Love your style of videos, you explain stuff so simply and your voice is really chill. Best of luck with your game and streams :)

You can also use shape keys which basically vertex that have multiple location at the same time. Then use driver keys to link shape keys value with the bone

One of the most irritating things in blender that I’m working on is the glitch with the clipping faces when you loop cut the object.

This reminds me of those bendable straws you get from those tiny juice box

"This example applies to the real world, too! If you have more joints, you're living a better life"

This video gave me a flashback to my brief 3D Modelling phase in 2020

I like how the more advanced the technique gets, the more it resembles the bumps on your finger

have you seen the unity multiplayer thing that got released recently? what's your opinion on it?

Idk if you can use these in game engines but in blender you can make shape keys that correct the deformation and only activate when that bone bends.

That's why our finger joints have so many lines

And yet the aluminium being bent is the closest that comes to realistic fingers.

How do you like the knife in apex legends? I play on controller and the knife is hard to aim lol it has no aim assist tho but I got a couple kills with it

I remember some paper on some algorythm that could make realistically deforming fingers etc. idk what happened to it tho probably part of some proprietary tech now

another garbanger. was actually starting a character poly model project soon and as a beginner these tips help heaps

1:30 thats literally how the skin is folded on our fingers! If you look at your thumb for example, at the outer side there are more wrinkles on the bending joint while on the inside there is one or two small dent-like wrinkle lines.

If I'm being brutally honest, this is why you find better topology like you were showing, but also put in another bone between each joint and socket. This works really well for knees, hips/butt, elbows, and even shoulders. I would also add in using shape keys that control the topology's quantity and quality while bending. After all, our skin stretches. Not our bones.

I've been reading about opengl and the process of creating a game engine (or in general, the creation of 3D computer graphics), and one thing that was very clear, is how difficult and intricate can beto give animations to 3D models. So yeah, just creating the tools it's complicated enough. But with talent and passionate people, everything seems posible

Also a good way to avoid that is using multiple joints/bones!

The PAIN

To show how difficult this is, even AI hasn't been able to render scenes with properly drawn limbs

I can't help but think of the Fallout New Vegas 2h weapon hand model that pops up occasionally.

Somewhere out there in the universe, an advance slime-like based civilisation is laughing at us and our joints

Let's be honest, we were all analyzing our fingers.

For knees and elbows, I think having 2 joints each is best, that way you can manipulate the bend to avoid creases on the shared verts. Another thing I wish riggers would do is add bones for muscles, like an extra bone halfway, then that could be 'flexed'. There is a lot of shortfall with rigging, we should be adding more bones and being more exact, not just adding more vertices all the time so the horrible bend gets a little less horrible.

Thank you!

worst part is that this problem only gets amplified when working with low poly art styles were you can often not afford more geometry.

If we are talking about deformation in general 3 edgeloops are the way to go for joints, if you merge them on one side, and you overextend that side it will still look bad, the reason why we merge them on one side is simply to save polygons, not because it's better.

I can’t wait for developers to eventually model joints after the real muscles and joint structures in our actual bodies. I know it will take a lot of power to computer hundreds/thousands of muscles on a character at the same time. Then to have multiple characters with the same articulation capabilities. Then to have realistic characters like that and an action scene or whatnot… lots of computing power needed, but eventually it will be awesome to see! Like when they eventually model actual entire engines and drivetrains for cars in driving simulators. Eventually, it will be awesome to see the physics interacting exactly as they do in the real world.

You have a nice day too Gearbaj ❤️

You can use weight paint on a subdivided surface for realistic bending

A really obvious but extreamly helpful technique. I don't rig or animate, so that part doesn't apply to me, but I'll keep this in mind next time I'm modeling things like street lights!

I was thinking this video would be talking about spherical interpolation and approximating it using dual quaternion. But apparently not :(

There's a better method for this using a circular technique for geometry around the elbow or knee or pretty much any joint, this would allow you have to have a loop only around the joints and you can add more loops around that area without it disrupting the rest of your topology

adding more vert help with smooth bending but adding less in the correct places is better since there is no vertex for it to bend:)

ur the guy that was making the mouse controler right , is there any more progress on that ? its a reallly interesting concept

2 straws connected together will form a sharp angle when bent 3 straws connected together will give more room to curve it's simple if we exclude weightpaint

Gasp Bendy straw

It's like bendable straws

Interesting vide, but I feel like you got the reasoning behind medieval armor a bit wrong. Those extra plates are there because in order for the wearer to be able to use his elbows his arm and forearm armor needs to end a bit before the elbow as steel doesn't exactly bend easily. That however would leave the users elbow exposed and be a weakpoint even if covered by chain mail. Therefore additional plates of steel that covered the elbow but interefered as little as possible with the movement were installed.

How did you guys learn how to code? I have been trying to code in Unity but other than tutorials that don’t work I haven’t coded anything. I have a slight knowledge of c# from Codecademy but I feel it doesn’t carry over to programming and developing games. Can some give me some insight and knowledge to lead me on the right track?

knights were being game developers the entire time without knowing

As you've shown. It's all a matter of topology. There is no getting around adding the extra vertices and faces necessary to make a movement without the entire thing turning into Gumbi.

I was play forbidden west a week ago and in one of the late game boss fights the dudes hand was doing the weirdest things and his palm was deformed

3D game characters: *Struggling to normally bend their arm* Minecraft Steve: *Pathetic.*

If you look at your own knuckles you can see that the devs followed this same principle.

A rigging expert going by the handle "Adeptus Steve" had most of a whole channel dedicated to these problems and covered the workflow retargeting to Unreal's engine. Including these elbow locators or something that scaled **way outwards** when they were IK'd... ( watch?v=eIOshqZ1lkU ) ...probably overkill for an FPS game though.

I wish I knew this when my computer screen wasn't broken.

Hey, Garbaj, everyone here! (The armour analogy was a good one, fella).

Oh boy do i love myself some knobbly kneese

Thinks for the idea )))

i know less about 3d modeling but cant it be like the 2 parts the connecting by the joint would be like separate so when its bend, the other part will just go through instead of deforming the object? it could result to another problem but maybe it could be fixed by some texturing or shading techniques

What would happen if the mesh used could stretch and compress, would that fix the issue without having to make more meshes? What I mean is that a mesh is usually a fixed distance between points, but what if that could change based on the angle that it's deforming to?

sooo... any plans on covering NVIDIA's new RTX Remix tool? Its a really cool application of AI to upscale older/lower resolution games.

For low poly graphics I just used separate meshes for the forearm and upper arm

Good topology and corrective shape keys keep this from happening. It's not really that big of a problem, just continue working on it, if you're having issues with stuff like this then your rig probably isn't done anyway, it's less of a problem and more of something you have to prepare for beforehand / tidy up afterwards.

You can try using something called a double joint system. Making something like an elbow rig