Really need advice for re topology high poly characters

[Bokicko]

Hey guys, i would like to give me the best advice you have about this.

I have very complex, high poly models, the only thing i do is i do the sculpting process, and then i give the model to other people to do the retopo, so can be used for rigging and animation for production. I see this really disadvantage for me. I wanna do that part too, so the riggers and animators later do their job.

The problem is, i have no idea. I do have really good understanding of human/creature animal anatomy, and my sculpts are really awesome that i am proud of it. But when it's comes for topology i am hitting a wall, and don't know way out.

When it's come for this more technical stuff ( retopology high poly models) i am a bit not sure. I have brought, tried many tutorials, but they are lack of information, they are time lapse.

Any advice, good online workshop about this, you guys know? And i want to understand the topology thing.

Does rigging the character will help me to understand topology and character deform, bend or movement? Can i later fix the topology after rigging and skinning the character? So i can for example add edge loops and fix edge flow when it's need it?

[JohNLA]

What 3d app are you using?
ZBrush and Mudbox both have pretty good Automatic poly reducers. 3DS Max has optimize but the ideal way is to do it by hand. In 3DS I select an edge or whole edgeloop and hit backspace to remove it. I then go to Vertext mode and select the leftover verts and hit the backspace button. It can be time consuming and that is why before adding to much detail to my High poly model I save a version that I can later edit into the Low poly version.
If you alter the geometry you will need to reskin it. Just like altering geometry can mess up your UVs
No good workshops I know of. Just do a search for your (3D app, modeling tutorials). 3D modeling programes like 3DS, Maya or Blender are better at it than a sculpt program like Mudbox or ZBrush.

[PsychotropicDog]

http://www.hippydrome.com/
probably more info then you need

http://www.youtube.com/user/PonderStudios
She's brilliant. I suggest buying the blenderella DVD.

Anatomy knowledge is going to be a big plus.

Yes rigging will change your outlook. It's another facet of the whole process that some think (incorrectly) is part of being an animator.
Depending on what app you are using, changing the topology after rigging is either a PITA or very simple. Most have a relatively simple transfer of skinning from one object to another, which of course gets a bit more complicated when you start adding morphs.

Before you even get to the 'rigging' stage you are likely to have to deal with UVs.

If you get to the 'animating' stage all that's left is export and refinement. By the time you get it 'working' in UDK you'll have a greater understanding of the entire pipeline, and anything you do with the entire pipeline in mind is going to be better. At the least, you won't be one of the fluff bunnies who think 'task A' will only take 5 minutes.

[darthviper107]

A good way to learn topology I think is to look at some character modeling tutorials--in those cases the character is modeled from scratch with the correct topology and then the sculpting is done from there.

[Bokicko]

What model i need to do UV, the very high poly or the model which is retopologized? Btw i am using Zbrush and Max for now. I am learning headus UVLayout. Should i transfer the high poly model there and do the Uvs? Sorry i am a bit confused, what i need to do.

What does mean PITA?

[darthviper107]

PITA=Pain in the ass

You would do the UV's on the low-poly mesh. It would be very slow and difficult to try and do them on your high-poly mesh. However, Zbrush has an automatic UV mapping tool so if you want to paint your textures in Zbrush you can do that for the high poly mesh there, and then you could transfer the painted textures onto your low-poly mesh. In that case you would still unwrap the UV's of the low-poly mesh in 3ds Max. Also to note--the automatic UV tool in Zbrush does not create a result you would want to use in UDK, so don't try to use it to UV your low-poly mesh, but rather use 3ds Max or UVLayout and set them up cleanly.

[Bokicko]

What to do when i have armor on my character, no just basic armor, here and there, but much more. Do i do retopo on the top of the character, or do first on the character, and the the armor,piece by piece? What if my armor is the same mesh from the character?

[McTune]

I would do it all piece by piece at first, you can easily attach them or unattach them that way, if per say you wanted to modify it later for whatever reason. for example during the pain in the ass rigging part of the whole process.
i use 3ds max i have found it has pretty decent retop tools. but if u want fast and easy there is a plug in for max called wrapit;
http://matt-clark.co.uk/wrapit/

other than that best to learn by doing and making mistakes.
plenty of tutorials on youtube.

thank god for youtube tutorials am i right ?

[SystemaSF]

Try Out 3d Coat, import your reference mesh and retopo it with the tools provided! also save poly's by baking the hi-poly model onto the low-poly, I use maya and simply have to cover the existing model with the low poly mesh and use transfer maps to add all details that can be done with bump/normals

[razielnomack]

I read that Decimation Master should not be used for animations. Somebody would know to inform the layman why not?

[Lexluthor1]

Hey guys, i would like to give me the best advice you have about this.

I have very complex, high poly models, the only thing i do is i do the sculpting process, and then i give the model to other people to do the retopo, so can be used for rigging and animation for production. I see this really disadvantage for me. I wanna do that part too, so the riggers and animators later do their job.

The problem is, i have no idea. I do have really good understanding of human/creature animal anatomy, and my sculpts are really awesome that i am proud of it. But when it's comes for topology i am hitting a wall, and don't know way out.

When it's come for this more technical stuff ( retopology high poly models) i am a bit not sure. I have brought, tried many tutorials, but they are lack of information, they are time lapse.

Any advice, good online workshop about this, you guys know? And i want to understand the topology thing.

Does rigging the character will help me to understand topology and character deform, bend or movement? Can i later fix the topology after rigging and skinning the character? So i can for example add edge loops and fix edge flow when it's need it?

I have some images of how topology should look if you want me to send you them..There is also an anatomical website that shows you an image of a real human head with 3d topology super imposed over the top, so that you can see how your quads should flow! I'll try and track down the URL for you!

[thejaguarmma]

I read that Decimation Master should not be used for animations. Somebody would know to inform the layman why not?

Rigging a decimated model is a Major PITA the tri's resulting from the decimation cause nasty deformation. Rigging models with 4 sided polys/squares (edge loop-able) is highly recommended. If I were you start learning how to Retopo...

[darthviper107]

There's a certain way the joints bend that if you don't have the proper topology then it doesn't deform correctly, topology is the pattern of your edges. Muscles deform the body in specific ways and so topology allows for the mesh to look correct when it deforms.

[TheAgent]

Zbrush's retopology tools are pretty good, other techniques is edge by edge retopology, You would use decimation master to reduce the poly count and also keep the details. That way you can import it into a program like Maya or Max, for retopology.

[jasonseabaugh]

Decimation master tends to create a lot of high frequency areas that become difficult to skin for good deformation. Meshes deform well when they are laid out in evenly spaced quads. This way you can manually assign weight values since you can see the way the mesh breaks and blending weights across more detailed areas becomes more predictable. If you try to blend weight values across uneven high-frequency clusters of vertices and triangulated mesh it will be very uneven... the algorithms do the best they can, but they're written for best cases. If your weights are bad you will almost always getting jaggy interpenetration, or have verts pass through edges, creating pops on the smoothing groups. Decimation master also tends to create a lot of long triangles that cut across areas of the mesh you need to deform... this compounds the above problems, and at very least have to be cut, introducing more verts in a mesh probably already loaded with unneeded verts.