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Welcome to Bridging Edge Loops!

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So in this video we're going to be learning the power of bridging edge loops,

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and then, oops, our pawn is lovely but has

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too many polygons.

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So just going back to our pawn

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being lovely but has too many polygons, taking the lean principle I

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pass my pawn straight on to Ben, so he can include it in a chess thing he's working

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on. He's says oh, Mike, that's great, but I want it low

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poly in style, not just in the polygon count itself.

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So we're going to have to bring down our polygon count of our pawn, and a great

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way of doing that is with bridging edge loops. So without further ado,

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let's hop straight on over into Blender!

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So the first thing I'm going to do here is just make our screen space a bit

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bigger. I've noticed that, despite working with a tiny space, I'm making it even smaller

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for myself. We don't need the timeline along the bottom, and I'm just going to drag that down

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and out of the way. And I'm just going to get rid of the Tool Shelf and Properties Pane, so

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we've got our pawn nice and big in the scene here,

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on the screen. So this is a lovely pawn,

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but Ben wants it lower poly. Now, I've already saved us the

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pain of going through trying to decimate it, so we could use the Decimate

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Modifier in here, and it doesn't matter which

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one you do, eventually you get around and, I guess you want the Tool Shelf at this

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point just to put flat shading on, so we can see what's happening to the

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underlying geometry here. You can see quite

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clearly that, either one of these you pick... I mean, Un-subdivide at least

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tries to keep the over all thing. And yes, we do get kind of

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low poly but the base starts becoming a bit weird and in

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places, when we get down to a much lower level, and I

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didn't like any of... That's kind of cool, I did kind of like that,

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but at the same time, it's not going to be in keeping with any of the rest of

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our pieces. So one of the best things we can do is bridging

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edge loops. The first thing we need to do is hop on over into Edit Mode, so I'm just going to

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undo that modifier I've got going there. So the way that this

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works is, we can select each series of edge loops. So let's

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do that now! I'm going to, basically, if we look at this one here we've got

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1, 2, 3, 4, 5 edge loops, 7 in

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total, but we're going to leave the top and bottoms ones because we need them, and

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simply select those 5. So 1,

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2, 3, 4, 5, and that's using

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Alt and holding down Shift to add them. Alright,

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and we simply go X and delete all of the vertices associated with

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those edge loops, so it's nice and clean. Nothing at that top

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and nothing at the bottom, which is great! So

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now, we have a slight problem, it looks

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like I selected an additional edge loop. Oh, that one was

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already selected on our model! Be careful about that! So

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let's just go in and reselect those 5.

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So when I hopped into Edit Mode, that was actually the last edge that was there. So

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X to delete and Vertices. Brilliant! So we've got this

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great bit hole in our model. Now, I can't remember how many

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segments there were here, but I think it's about 32, but there will be 32

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vertices running around that circle and 32 running around this one. It

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simply means that we can hold down Alt and select that

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edge loop. Do the same with this top one, so holding down Shift

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at the same time, so we select them both. Then, under the

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Mesh menu, Edges and Bridge Edge

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Loops, it will do that for us. Now, the great

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thing about this, and this is really cool, so if we go down to this next section here

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and go, well I don't want those two there and

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just get rid of those. And this is going to leave some holes in our model but

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bear with me. I don't want that one, so I'm literally picking,

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kind of, control points, I suppose. I do want this edge here and I do want

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the one underneath it, so I'm just going to delete that one off. Now, let's move

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a bit further down on our model and zoom in. I want to keep that one

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but I don't want those, so I'll get rid of those

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to that point there, so I want to keep that. So I'll get rid of those,

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as well, and then finally, I won't go any

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further than that, I think you get the point here. Now, if I select the edge loops that are

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remaining, so those four there, and

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then, go Mesh, Edges, Bridge

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Edge Loops, you'll see that it automatically bridges all of those loops,

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so I don't have to do them individually. Now, arguably, looking at that, I can

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almost get rid of that, but I think we need that to get the shape right.

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It's challenge time! OK, I'd like you to

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lower the base polygon count! So open up the base .blend

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file and save it as a new file, base Low Polygon,

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baseLP, something along those lines. Make sure you are

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working on the new .blend file, before you continue, and cut

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down the amount of geometry, all the way down to around 100 triangles.

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That should get you a descent low poly base. Now,

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keeping the circular shape, I'd like you to make sure that the

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circle, looking from the top, has 8 edges, so it's essentially an octagon

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around its base. OK, pause the video now,

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and go and give that a go! OK guys,

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welcome back! Let's hop straight on over into Blender!

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OK, so we have our chess piece base open

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here! Now, the first thing I'm going to do is just clean up my interface a little

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around the edges here and just get rid of the Tool Shelf and properties,

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just so I can see my base a little better. OK, so we

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need to decide which set of edge loops we're

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removing. Well, first of all, I'm going to go into Top

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View. You don't have to go into Top View, it's just easier to

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work with. And I want 8 of these, and I do want them to line up with

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the X, Z axis, otherwise it can be a wee bit confusing. So

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I want to keep that one, and 1, 2, 3, yeah!

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So I want to delete every third edge loop, so I'm going to go 1,

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hold down Shift and select those three, miss one and select another

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three, and I'm simply going to repeat that around our entire

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object. Now, this is a little tiresome, you may think, Oh, I could just go and

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recreate it, but depending on the size of the model that you're working

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with, that could also be a very gigantic task. At least,

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now we've got all the proportions right and everything else. So I'm going to

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press X now, and I'm going to delete Vertices. Now,

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at this point in time, we just need to recreate it now using those.

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I'm going to select everything, pressing the A Key,

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and then, finally go to Mesh, Edges,

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and Bridge Edge Loops. There's another really quick

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way of doing this, we've covered it before. And since we're going to be doing Bridge

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Edge Loops several times in a row, when we press space

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if you start searching for Bridge Edge Loops, there we go,

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I can just press Enter, at that point, and we can see that it leaves a gap.

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So I'm just going to select that final edge loop there and this one here...

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Whoah, then select the right one, that one there and that one there.

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Brilliant! And this time, I can just hit Space again to bring up this search

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and press Enter, straight away. Really powerful, being able to

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do that, especially if you're doing a lot of repetitive tasks. OK, so

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the final set of edge loops, that is 8 yeah, the final set of

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edge loops is just to make sure this isn't quite so curvy. And usually,

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the best way of doing that is, if we look at the profile running down

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here, is to remove the ones in between the points of

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inflection. So that would be this edge loop around the

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top, not the very top one but that one there. Then, it's got a point here, then

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these two can go, leaving that one. These two can go

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here, leaving that one. Oh, I'm not holding down Shift,

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for anybody watching! That was a bit silly of me! There we go, those are selected.

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I want to keep that one, and these can go! Now, it's a

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bit... I don't know which one of these to keep, I'm going to keep this very bottom

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one, I think, and then, this and I'm going to keep

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that coming out, so we've got it defined, coming back out

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here. Then, get rid of these three but keeping an edge along

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the bottom. OK, I think I'm happy with that! I'm going to press the

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X Key and delete the Vertices. OK,

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and the final thing to do is, I'm going to select everything and go

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Mesh, Edges, and

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Bridge Edge Loops. Of course, you could just use the Spacebar again and press Enter.

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And that's looking pretty good, but I am actually going to just make

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sure a couple of things are working. I'm going to fill in this top, using

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the edge loop around the top and pressing F. I'm going to

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rotate around to the bottom and select this

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bottom one and do exactly the same there, fill in that face.

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Now, the final thing I do want to do, because we've been playing about with the geometry here,

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is just make sure there are no doubles. So I'm going to open up the Tool Shelf,

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select everything, make sure I'm still in Edit Mode, scrolling down

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and Remove Doubles. Ah, there's nothing there. And I'm also just going to

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make sure the normals are correct. In that case, I'm going to use

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Control and N, if you remember from earlier, and just make sure they're

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outward facing for us. That's brilliant! The

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final thing, that I could have done to begin with is but I decided to do at the end,

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was go to File and Save

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As, and I'm going to call mine LP Chess Piece Base.

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Save As A Blender File. That's great! Let's just have a look at

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our details we have here. So vertices, we've got

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56 Edges. Faces there and Triangles, those are our

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polygon counts; often, a lot of these just get divided up into

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triangles anyway, is 108. So that's perfect,

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that's met our specification. How did you guys get on?

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Share in the discussions, and I will see you in the next lecture!