Polygon or triangles?

[HzBakken]

Hello.

I have been watching some youtube videos over the last months, and have now been starting to modeling some.

I now woundering whats best for game modeling in UE, is it polygons or triangles?
And why?

I have been trying to search for this one google, but since its so many diffrent opinions on this. I thouhg it would be better to ask here.
Thanks!

[Ispheria]

It doesn't matter, unreal and unity will convert it to triangles anyways, so do whatever is easier to model with, which is typically quads

[ZacD]

You'll want to convert models to triangles before baking textures.

[HzBakken]

You'll want to convert models to triangles before baking textures.

Is there any reason for this?

[GarnerP57]

Triangulation from an n-gon with more than 3 sides is done differently by different software packages. If you triangulate your mesh before exporting you remove potential discrepancy's.

When modelling for practical reasons you would avoid triangles because it will prevent edge loops and sub-division will create star patterns and so on. Behind the scenes even if you only see squares it is read as triangles by the GPU so it is only a convenience created by the modelling program to allow tools like the edge loop tool to work properly.

Just be mindful of the discrepancy's when dealing with a square versus a triangle. Cutting a square can be done in two different ways. A triangulated mesh has no discrepancy's.