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Getting lost in lowpoly pipeline

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Apheleion vertex
Hello peeps, i am starting to get bogged down in my low poly phase i am trying to make the model low poly enough for a game but high enough so the detail shows through. I am seriously contemplating what my tri  count should be, but i have no real frame of reference i know low poly is one of my greatest weaknesses  the photos i will post up have my tricount and polycount. any and all help is greatly appreciated. Tri:163,806 Poly:155,966 is my poly and tri count way to high? bottom photo is my high poly

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  • musashidan
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    musashidan high dynamic range

    Yes, it is way too high. I'm guessing you just used an auto-topo solution. That boulder could probably be reduced by a factor of 20.


    As an example, the hero character from Uncharted 4 is only 30k. The cinematic version double that.

  • kanga
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    kanga quad damage
    It looks like you sculpted the character. If you want the character for a game then you will have to reduce the polycount. You can find info on that in the wiki: http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ReTopologyModeling

  • Apheleion
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    Apheleion vertex
    so for the main body character i used zsphere retopology and then from that retopo i zremeshed to clean up that retopo, i still have the base retopos for all my subtools in zbrush, i wa just really concerned that my retopo was just super low to the point where my detail would barely show up.
  • kanga
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    kanga quad damage
    With game characters you go through a process of baking. The bulk of the detail is supported by normal maps. These maps dont deform geometry but give the illusion of detail. The only thing you need to keep in mind is the profile of your model and that you have geometry that deforms well when animated. Look up texture baking.
  • Apheleion
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    Apheleion vertex
    Thanks for the replies gentleman and or ladies i do understand baking with height and normal maps, i use substance painter to do my baking so what i will do is use my original zsphere retopology which is way less polys and tris and i will just use zremesher to clean up the polys and tries while keeping the count.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Or ... you could build a properly hand-crafted polygon model suitable for game use, as one would expect from a portfolio piece.
  • musashidan
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    musashidan high dynamic range
    You retoped the sculpt by hand and then zremeshed the retop? Makes no sense. Why would you do that? Your manual retop should be your final game ready mesh, when using the sculpt first workflow.
  • Apheleion
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    Apheleion vertex
    Oh really so i can just use the hand crafted retopo? Sweet. i have been trying to get as much information on retopo by watching youtube and some people used zremesh to clean up their retopo so i assumed it was part of the pipeline
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    "some people used zremesh to clean up their retopo"

    Whoever does that or claims to do that, is using the term "retopo" in a very, very loose way. "Retopo" basically implies "manual retopology", over which you have full control. Your understanding of "hand crafted retopo" is also probably off base, since it would never make any sense to zremesh a model that one spent time carefully crafting by hand.

    Don't trust random youtubers, that's precisely why you are "getting lost in the lowpoly pipeline". Instead go out of your way to find wireframe screenshots of actual production models used in real games, built by professionals.

    Or even better : let go of Zbrush for about 2 months or so, and focus on learning clean, traditional modeling techniques. These are at the very core of proper retopology, and no game production would be viable without them.
  • Apheleion
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    Apheleion vertex
    this is what my current hand retopoed body looks like .
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Yeah, it's nowhere near good enough for portfolio or production use. Spend more time on it, and it will solve all your issues.

    And don't place a single vert/edge without closely looking at a wireframe screenshot of a model from the best game you can think of. It's pretty much as simple as that.
  • Apheleion
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    Apheleion vertex
    so Pior in your opinion is it that my retopo is does not have perfect squared polyes or is it something else that i am missing all together? and thanks a lot for the really education advice some to everyone else who has been giving me information on this as well.
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    About your original question of "I am seriously contemplating what my tri  count should be";
    You badly need to learn some restraint when creating a 'lowpoly' model. To that end, I'd say you should shoot for roughly early PS3/360 gen character specs; about 5-10K tris. With that much geometry you should be able to start learning the basics of optimization.
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    "is it that my retopo is does not have perfect squared polyes or is it something else that i am missing all together?"

    Place a wireframe screenshot of your model right next to a wireframe screenshot of a professionally built model and it will be obvious. Don't guess. Study.
  • JordanN
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    JordanN interpolator
    Pssst.

    Artstation. Marmoset (or Sketchfab) viewer models. Select wireframe from the options. 
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    Yeah, but this is to be taken with a grain of salt since models made for actual games are rarely uploaded to model viewer platforms for confidentiality reasons. Making-of videos often feature the aforementioned wireframe screenshots though, and some games have modding tools with downloadable assets to check.
  • NoRank
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    NoRank polycounter lvl 3
    You can try to rig your character and animate it, I'm pretty sure you will notice why the topology is not good enough. For characters it's not only a matter of how good it will bake.
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