How to ADD and REMOVE EDGE LOOPS in Blender

Introduction

In this arti­cle we see how to add edge loop to a 3D mod­el to obtain extra geom­e­try allow­ing us to increase the detail on our model.

I have a quick video on this topic:

In this video we see a cou­ple method to ADD and REMOVE EDGE LOOPS in Blender.


Adding edge loops to a model in Blender

We start with a 3D mod­el like the one shown in fig­ure 1, what we want is to add sub­di­vi­sions to the mesh dis­trib­uted along the cylinder.

3D model of a cylinder in Blender edit mode.
Fig. 1: We start from the 3D mod­el of a cylin­der in Blender edit mode.

Press CTRL+R and move the mouse to the object you want to cut until you see a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the new edge loop as shown in fig­ure 2, if you left click on that moment you will cre­ate the edge loop, but you can also increase the num­ber of sub­di­vi­sions by turn­ing the mouse wheel, so you get what you see in fig­ure 3, a cer­tain num­ber of edge loops equi­spaced along the model.

3D model of a cylinder in Blender edit mode with an edge loop added to it
Fig. 2: With CTRL+R you can add edge loops.
3D model of a cylinder in Blender edit mode with several edge loops added to it
Fig. 3: With the mouse wheel the num­ber of loop cuts can be increased.

When we con­firm and cre­ate the edge loops, the win­dow shown in Fig­ure 4 appears in the low­er left cor­ner of the View­port win­dow, in which we can spec­i­fy the num­ber of slices and oth­er parameters.

blender section and loop cut parameters window
Fig. 4: When apply­ing the cuts, a win­dow appears in the low­er left cor­ner to mod­i­fy the parameters.

How to remove an edge loop in Blender

Now what we are look­ing for is to get rid of some edge loops but keep the shape of the object, we start by select­ing the edge loop we want to remove (lat­er we will see how to remove sev­er­al loops at once). A quick way to select an edge loop is to press ALT and click on the edge that is part of the loop we want to select, fig­ure 5 shows where I clicked and the result of the selection.

3d model of a cylinder with subdivisions in blender with one of its edge loops selected
Fig. 5: To remove an edge loop we start by select­ing the edge loop with ALT+Click.

To remove those edges with­out leav­ing a hole in the mod­el what we have to do is to dis­solve those edges, so with the edges loop select­ed we press X and choose the option "Dis­solve Edges", this pro­duces the result of fig­ure 7.

vertex, edge and face removal window in blender
Fig. 6: Press­ing X dis­plays a win­dow with delete options.
3d model of a cylinder with subdivisions in blender, with one of its edge loops removed.
Fig. 7: Select­ed edges were dissolved.

How to remove multiple edge loops in Blender at once

When we want to remove mul­ti­ple edges with the pre­vi­ous method prob­lems could arise if adja­cent edges are select­ed, as shown in Fig­ure 8, when try­ing to dis­solve two edge loops that are togeth­er the result is as in Fig­ure 9.

dissolving selected edges in blender
Fig. 8: Two adja­cent edge loops are select­ed and dissolved.
geometry problem after dissolving two adjacent loops in blender
Fig. 9: Dis­solv­ing adja­cent edge loops caus­es prob­lems in the object geometry.

An alter­na­tive is to select edge loops leav­ing an inter­me­di­ate loop uns­e­lect­ed, as shown in Fig­ure 10.

3d model of a cylinder with subdivisions in blender to which several edge loops are selected
Fig. 10: Sev­er­al edge loops can be select­ed with the SHIFT key.
dissolving selected edges in blender
Fig. 11: Again a dis­so­lu­tion of the select­ed edges is made.

In this way the prob­lem of fig­ure 9 does not occur and the loops can be dis­solved cor­rect­ly, as shown in fig­ure 12.

3d model of a cylinder with subdivisions in blender with several edge loops eliminated
Fig. 12: Result of the dis­so­lu­tion of the select­ed edges.

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