Two questions - Polys and Floating geo

[ikonane]

I am sure that this question has been up on the forums many times before but I have been thinking about the difference of quad modeling and the "typical"(?) low poly 3-5+ faces.

I often seen this kind of geometry in low poly meshes, example:
http://www.stepanprokop.cz/DVD/images/bus01.jpg

But I have learned to model more like this:
http://krconcept.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/2011-09-22_143715.png

How much more effective is the first method? Should I practice that kind of modeling as well?

What is your thoughts?

(Images stolen from google)


2nd:
I have started doing quite a lot floating elements in my meshes. But I have read that it is bad, why?

I can understand if you dont want to use floaters in areas that is going to bend or such in animations but are there other reasons? Not to use them? You are saving polygons right.


Thanks!

[ikonane]

No one?

[Stradigos]

I always model things with good edge flow, like in your second picture. Perhaps you can get away with it in mobile games, but geo like that will not light or tessellate correctly in modern game engines. If you look up why good edge flow is important, there will probably be more on the subject. But short answer, no, do not practice that method. It will cause headaches.

[cryrid]

I find thinking in triangles helps when I want to keep things really low-poly as I'm not wasting faces just trying to make things quad for the sake of having all quads. Nowadays it's not about keeping things as low poly as possible though, and depending on how the object is being rendered those extra verts could be very beneficial to the look of the model. Quads also help out with various tools like selecting, as you can then select loops and ranges.

Floating elements aren't bad, though they can be misused. Mainly when they're wasting too much UV space or causing problems with vertex shading.

[keres]

Statically lit objects tend to do better with poor tessellation. I've found keeping good edge flow, for the very sake of vertex lighting, is ideal. Some lighting algorithms seem more dependent on vertex normals than others, but maybe that's just me. :)

With UDK or other lightmap-based situations, smooth edges are more dependent on where the UV islands are split.

[ikonane]

Ok, thanks for the answers!
Then I don't need to re-learn everything ;)

Floating elements aren't bad, though they can be misused. Mainly when they're wasting too much UV space or causing problems with vertex shading.
Exactly, taking up UV space is the most annoying problem I have with them as well.