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zrmesh or retopo by hand ?

Ruz
polycount lvl 666
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Ruz polycount lvl 666
i find the whole auto retopo a bit hard to control at times - it's quite good on faces/heads, but I find it a bit weird on clothes.

Are production artists still doing it by hand for more control?

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  • MM
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    MM polycounter lvl 17
    depends on the purpose.

    if you are just cleaning up base mesh then it works great usually.

    if you retopo for final production model then it barely works out. there are exceptions to what sort of mesh you need though. if all you need is a dense quad mesh on which you will apply displacement then it can work out.

    for game models it never worked for me since it isnt smart enough to create a proper game mesh with quads in the right place and triangles in the needed places. also it often creates spiral loops of quads around areas like fingers, toes etc.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    cheers MM
    I was really hoping that it could do a clean enough mesh for a game type model, but its just too hard to control. I can get some thing that is 'close' to what I want so figured I can maybe retopo over that ie use it as a retopo base

    when I am sculpting I generally try and keep in it evenly spaced quads until I am happy, then do the retopo for the final low poly to bake from

    My main concern is the time taken to do it manually, then lo and behold you change the sculpt, or some aspect needs changing, then you have to alter the retopo again.

    the good thing with doing it manually in max either using graphite or wrapit(which I bought) is the amount of control you get.
  • Dubzski
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    Dubzski polycounter lvl 11
    Topogun is the bee's knee's; its another program... but very easy to ues / learn + does a fantastic job!
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    Yeah i did try topogun but it seemed to crash a lot on my system. I prefer 3ds max for retopo TBH
  • Lord Waffles
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    Lord Waffles polycounter lvl 10
    I use ZRemesher a lot. Typically I remesh the sculpt when i'm done and play with the settings to get a pretty clean 6k or below model. Then I bring it into Maya for some cleanup work.

    The biggest plus is that ZRemesher does a pretty solid job at creating edge loops (I find holding ALT and clicking on it does a better job at making sure edge loops flow straight through) which when brought into your modeling package can easily be edited to drastically reduce the poly count.

    Saves a boatload of time if you didn't start with a base mesh, and does wonders on organic crap like rocks.
  • MM
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    MM polycounter lvl 17
    Ruz wrote: »
    Yeah i did try topogun but it seemed to crash a lot on my system. I prefer 3ds max to retopo TBH

    that is wierd. togopun 2 has been very stable for me on multiple hardware setups and so far the fastest retopo tool i have worked with.

    i have seen people retopo in zbrush, max and other tools and most of the cases is is 2-3 times slower that what i could do in topogun.

    make sure to report how the crash is caused and it is likely to get fixed since development team is very focused and small without any bureaucracy.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    Lord Waffles - i kind of agrees with you and I think all that is missing for me with zremesher is some kind of fine control. It's a bit hit and miss right now.
    I think the best thing for me is to get my resonable mesh from zremesher then fix it up in max or maya whatever

    MM - maybe I will revisit topogun - I am taking the time right now to go through my workflow and address the stuff that I am slowest at or struggling with, so hopefully I can add this software to my armoury too
    It was the demo that was constantly crashing, so maybe the full version does n't do this
  • artquest
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    artquest polycounter lvl 13
    The guys from Sony Santa Monica in their Siggraph presentation said that they were using z-remesher in production to make game ready models but they didn't elaborate much on their process. I've been using it on a handful of models to generate low poly stuff but it tends to require a lot of editing back in maya.
  • Der Hollander
    I'm probably alone in this statement, but I much, much prefer 3DCoat to any retopology I've tried thus far, including old school ZBrush retopo, Topogun, and Wrapit. It's a little finicky sometimes, but it has really solid classic retopo tools along with some great timesavers such as the Cap, Split Rings, and Strokes tools. It looks like new versions of 3DCoat have an automated retopology function as well, but the point being is it navigates really easy and took me about 10 minutes to learn.
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    I'm probably alone in this statement, but I much, much prefer 3DCoat to any retopology I've tried thus far, including old school ZBrush retopo, Topogun, and Wrapit. It's a little finicky sometimes, but it has really solid classic retopo tools along with some great timesavers such as the Cap, Split Rings, and Strokes tools. It looks like new versions of 3DCoat have an automated retopology function as well, but the point being is it navigates really easy and took me about 10 minutes to learn.

    you are not alone here :)

    my biggest issue with zremesher are the god damn spiral loops it generates
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    same here... 3dcoat for retopo in combination with mudbox autoRetopo or zremesher...
    but the new retopo tools in maya are coming closer... hope for an update in the upcomming maya version...
  • seth.
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    seth. polycounter lvl 14
    Neox wrote: »

    my biggest issue with zremesher are the god damn spiral loops it generates


    This.

    Even when you lay down some pretty serious guide curves to coax it into creating loops it will usually create one huge spiral across models for me so I only use it for quick re-ordering of a rough sculpt mesh before applying detail.

    I re-topo with max but I am switching to maya atm which seems to have wrapit-esque shrinkwrap with Nex built in as standard now...nice!
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    seth. wrote: »
    Even when you lay down some pretty serious guide curves to coax it into creating loops it will usually create one huge spiral across models for me so I only use it for quick re-ordering of a rough sculpt mesh before applying detail.

    haha yeah just had this recently, selected an edge at the bottom of a pant, hit select loop, boom whole mesh selected :D
  • oglu
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    oglu polycount lvl 666
    site note: mudbox has hard constrains for curves...
    you will get a edge there --> no spirals
    but still far from optimal...
  • Stirls
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    Stirls polycounter lvl 8
    The spirals are what get me every time. Eugrgh. 3D Coat is so good for retopo. Much faster than my old Maya workflow, which was extrusion of planes along the surface of my character.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    retopo is a pain. I don't really do any games work now, but in vfx/advertising or whatver you want to call it , they generally want a 'traditional' mesh with lots of horizontals and verticals.( much like a quad based base mesh that you would sculpt on)
    I am not often asked to do any retopo, so it's a case of matching the original base mesh as close as possible then baking from that. far from ideal, but you can see the logic as the animators need a mesh to work with almost from day 1, so they can't be arsed to wait around for a fancy retopo mesh.

    In games I guess the turnaround is not as fast so the retopo stage is 99 percent required.
  • cryrid
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    cryrid interpolator
    I've found that the smooth + crease curve + frame mesh combo has just about completely eliminated spirals from my results.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    can you go in to a bit more detail on that cryid. i did see a tutorial a while back where this guys sliced his model up somehow beofre retopo
  • Lord Waffles
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    Lord Waffles polycounter lvl 10
    Ruz wrote: »
    can you go in to a bit more detail on that cryid. i did see a tutorial a while back where this guys sliced his model up somehow beofre retopo

    It sounds like cryid does something very similar to what I do.

    When working with small props or organics these loops aren't too big of an issue as long as the poly count isn't absurd. However when trying to get a character you have to do a bit more tweaking.

    1. The first thing I always do is smooth out the mesh and get rid of a lot of the details such as the abs on a character. The reason I have found this helps so much is because ZRemesher seems to love to wrap muscles with some weird loops and by smoothing it out it helps it to simply wrap around the whole body vs a ring around the abs.

    2. The second thing (and this seems important) is to drop the sub D level to something under 2 mil and then delete the levels. You want to drop the model so it's easier on ZBrush to do the calculation, however what I have found to be true is that ZRemesher goes wild on decimated meshes. I get far better topology when I ZRemesh a non-decimated mesh vs a decimated mesh. I believe it's because ZRemesher tries to use current topology flow as somewhat of a guide however when you decimate the mesh ZRememsher simply creates a lot more of those giant loops. (This is not as affective unless you started with a base mesh).

    3. This step is why you deleted the Sub D history. Using the crease brush you can create quick slices in your mesh such as joints. It seems to help a lot as ZRemesh seems to respect the creased edges much more than the topo curves. It makes sure that there is a solid loop at the crease making any spiral loops stop which makes cleanup easier.

    4. This is something I don't use all that much, but you can use the frame mesh to get some quick curves around very specific detail. You can also use it for some quick manual topology.

    5. Generally I do setup some ZRemesh guides if i'm really that concerned about topology flow. I find that using 75% over 50% guide restriction works a little better. I also throw on some quick poly paint guides. I tend to increase the density in the face by x2 and decrease the density by about .50 on the back of the head and on muscles etc. By decreasing the density around muscles it makes ZRemesher just focus on wrapping a loop around the body part instead of around just the muscle.

    NOTE: My ZRemesh hates mouth bags, absolutely implodes the head of my models. I find if you need a mouth bag, do it after the fact in your 3D program then bring it back and sculpt some teeth.

    NOTE 2: Sometimes ZRemeshing with just clicking on it, then ZRemeshing the ZRemesh this time holding alt when clicking it helps clean up the remesh and cleans up that symmetry line.

    Pretty long post, but I hope it helps in one way or another.

    Cheers
  • seth.
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    seth. polycounter lvl 14
    cryrid wrote: »
    I've found that the smooth + crease curve + frame mesh combo has just about completely eliminated spirals from my results.

    never tried smoothing but I cut my mesh into a ton of polygroups and frame the mesh, curve strength to 100...and it ignores me completely...the bastard

    thanks for the tips Lord Waffles I will try those steps and see if I have any better luck in the future.


    Ruz: the technique is to cut your mesh into polygroups ( I use slice curve which may be another thing I'm doing wrong) then once you have your looping polygroups in the stroke pannel under curve function there is the frame mesh button...this will put curves across any polygroup borders that you have to use as guides for the zremesh.
  • Dave Jr
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    Dave Jr polycounter lvl 9
    seth. wrote: »
    never tried smoothing but I cut my mesh into a ton of polygroups and frame the mesh, curve strength to 100...and it ignores me completely...the bastard

    thanks for the tips Lord Waffles I will try those steps and see if I have any better luck in the future.


    Ruz: the technique is to cut your mesh into polygroups ( I use slice curve which may be another thing I'm doing wrong) then once you have your looping polygroups in the stroke pannel under curve function there is the frame mesh button...this will put curves across any polygroup borders that you have to use as guides for the zremesh.

    Hey Seth,

    Seeing as your using Maya now; thought this might come in handy for retopo :) I've used it a few times myself.

    http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=122453
  • TAN
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    TAN polycounter lvl 12
    God I had that spiral problem too. Especially fingers.. the fingers !

    I usually zremesh it Half poly count several times to some extent ( until it can still protect the form and important silhoutte ) than I bring it to 3ds Max end start deleting edge loops and correcting these spirals ( as much as I can of course)

    But I never tried alt clicking. I will try these next time and write the result here. Thanks for all the advices people ! :D
  • Optinium
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    Optinium polycounter
    I find framing creased edges, smoothing the mesh and tweaking the Zremesher options usually eradicates twists and spirals. However for game ready stuff 3DCoat is the business, some static objects then decimation master is great to.
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    cheers seth, I did mangage to work it out, but used the curve slice rather than polygroups
    works ok, but still not the level of control of doing it by hand

    also, seth does n't the curve strength need to be lower to make it stronger?
  • cryrid
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    cryrid interpolator
    can you go in to a bit more detail on that cryid. i did see a tutorial a while back where this guys sliced his model up somehow beofre retopo

    Pretty much what Waffles elaborated on. Smoothing the mesh will get rid of any uneccessary detail that might throw zremesher off, letting it focus only on the large forms and the overall volume instead. You can smooth it manually, or try the documentation's suggestion to retopologize a quick remeshed result.

    The benefit to using crease curve over slice curve is that the creasing line ends where your mouse does, instead of crossing over the entire screen and cutting up the rest of the model. From there Frame Mesh can use the crease tags to generate the retopo guides, while the creased topology should act as a secondary guideline for zremesh to consider.

    Toying with the adaptive size can also free things up a little
  • Ruz
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    Ruz polycount lvl 666
    cheers cryid , yeah my mistake I did use the crease curve brush not the slice curve.
    I can get results that are reasonable overall, but still manual clean up is the way to go for now.
  • Pegbird
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    Pegbird polycounter lvl 5
    +1 for 3D Coat retopo, much more intuitive and fluid than topogun in my opinion. It's auto-retopo tools are suprisingly reliable if you set it up right.
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