hi to low poly in maya (super noob)

breakneck

hi all, i've been looking for a straight forward answer to this question for quite some time: what are some good methods of going from high poly to low poly in maya?
i've only been working off of low poly models and i'm ready to jump into generating normals from high poly.
tutorials? advice? anything would be great! (you can now bash my complete lack of knowledge while your at it too)

rebb

I forgot which Version of Maya added this, but theres the "Transfer Maps" Tool which is in the "Rendering" Menu-Set in the "Lighting/Shading" Drop-Down.

Here you can transfer all sorts of different Maps from one or more Source-Meshes onto one or more Target-Meshes. The Settings in there should be fairly self-explanatory ( i guess ).

breakneck

i might of been mess leading, i mean how is a good way to turn the high poly to a low poly? am i supposed to have a 2 models or do i remod the high poly ver? i've never done anything like this so i kinda need to start at step one.

Daz

There is no 'turning the hi poly into the low poly'. You model it again, using the hi as a template. There are umpteen different ways to do this. You can do it by eye. You can use a tool such as Nex to draw topology on to the high res model. You can use the Make live in Maya stuff. Really there are all sorts of ways that people get the low poly closely matching their hi. But essentially you are building the model again in low poly.

breakneck

Daz: thanks i didn't know that. i'll go from there.