Change Your Understanding of Topology In Six Minutes
Why Blender Stack Exchange recommends it
Blender Stack Exchange answerers point people to it when they need to get rid of N-gons or reduce and rework edge flow while keeping quads.
Recommended by 2 people across 2 different months, 2020 to 2025.
What it is
A short Blender tutorial by DECODED (a VFX artist) on how to change the edge count of a mesh and keep clean quad topology. It explains how to connect odd and even numbers of faces to step down or reroute edge loops without N-gons.
What people said
Recommends moonboots · 2020-05 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “How to add faces to a cylinder top? (cookie)”
yes I dug some holes with extrusions. To fill the inner circle you need to follow the shapes of ornement, then fill the faces. Maybe you should follow some tutos on how reduce topology like this one: [this video] or [LINK] If you don't want sharp edge, create bevels and move the edge loops so it doesn't sharp the edges.
Recommends Jesse · 2021-01 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Did I create N-gons?”
Yes you created an ngon in the back. Being that It's in the back maybe it's not a problem. If you are encountering a problem a very easy thing to try is to inset the ngon face which gives you quads around the perimeter of the ngon which will solve some problems. If you want to rework your topology so that you don't have ngons or unnecessary geometry on the sides without detail I recommend watching this video which shows how to step down your faces while maintaining quad geometry: [this video]
Cites Julio Pimentel · 2020-05 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Problems with "simple-mesh" smooth shading”
I'm modeling a wooden elephant and using this method for cleaning the topology [this video] . I'm having a little problem with a "simple" mesh, when adding a subdivision-surface-modifier and applying the Shade-Smooth . As shown on the video, near the base of the legs and the "bridge" between the legs looks kind of pointy instead of smooth. It really confuses me given that in theory I have a simple topology. I already recalculated the normals in various ways and the problem persists. [LINK]
Cites yunusemregul · 2020-12 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “Is my topology bad?”
So I was watching a video and practicing what the video tells. I made the following model while practicing, the thing is I believe the topology must be alright according to the video but there are lighting artifacts as seen in the below pictures. I couldn't understand what is wrong with my topology. The video: [this video] [LINK] [LINK] [LINK]
Cites Lauloque · 2025-03 · Blender Stack Exchange · on “N-gon on cheek and above mouth”
What you highlight in your screenshot are not N-gons, but poles, specifically E-poles or N-poles depending on who you ask A bit of vocabulary N-gon: $\text{polygons of }N\text{ sides}$ . In mesh modeling, since we care only about triangles and quadrilaterals, and "anything else" is bunched together, N-gon is most often implied as $\text{polygons of }N>4\text{ sides}$ unless specified otherwise. Poles, are a vertex where edges meet. And the tricky part is, depending on who you ask, an N-pole can be either two things. Some will assimilate it to the N-gon definition, where an N-pole is a $\text{vertex meeting }N\text{ edges}$ , and similarly, often understood with N > 4. But, to polygonal model