Even quad flow before export to sculpting app

carlo_c

Something I always find myself doing tediously before exporting something to mudbox is trying to get as even a quad flow as I can, so I don't have really streched polygons that won't sculpt properly.

I usually do this by hand just adding loops where I think it's needed but because I don't use sculpting apps all the time, I've been wondering is there a quicker workflow for this?

Maybe it's really obvious and I'm just not seeing it lol :poly127:

Will Faucher

I know what you mean. Maybe trying a new modelling technique could help you out? I am assuming you are modelling from Low-Poly to High-Poly correct? -Try Simply making a basemesh. Something that is a VERY general shape of that you want to make.
-After, bring that into mudbox. No need to unwrap. That way, you are sure the polyflow is fine.
- Sculpt you object in mudbox from start to finish.
-Once the high poly is done, remodel on top of the high poly. That way, you are not limited to your low poly model when you are sculpting, and 2nd, you avoid needing to meticulously make your edge loops perfectly spaced.
Tools that can help you retopologize are programs like topogun. You can always try it in max with a lower rez version of your high poly (you don't want to bring in a 4 million poly head into max) and model over the high poly in max. Once that is done, unwrap the low poly and bake!

Hope this helped a little!

Michael Knubben

Prophecies: it sounds like he's adding detail in his basemesh where he knows he'll need it, so I'm assuming he doesn't have the luxury of being able to subdivice so high as to make all stretching dissapear. In which case, I'm afraid there isn't any magical solution, other than to sculpt a very simple basemesh and retopologise once you've got the shape down. If you know what you're going to sculpt (working off a strict concept...) then there's no reason to switch methods.

AreDub3D

@ Prophecies:
How simple is simple? Do you not need to add edges to those you want to reinforce and keep somewhat hard? And if I add beveled/chamfered edges, do I need to add edge loops throughout the mesh to keep the spacing consistent?

This is a base of a small stone shrine, VERY simple now, and am just in the middle of chamfering the edges I want to keep somewhat sharp (lest they collapse into a ball in Mudbox). I guess my question is, do I need to add more loops throughout to keep the spacing even.

DarthNater

It's funny, I'm currently in the process of writing a tutorial for this.... Let me give you the link, just remember though, this isn't finished so don't yell at me (the site isn't even finished so don't look at the rest of it!)....

http://nfollmer.weebly.com/walltutorialp1.html

Basically, don't use edge loops like this because you're going to give yourself a headache. Get the basic shape down, add loops so all your faces look like squares, crease all the edges, and turbosmooth enough that your edges will stay somewhat sharp.

AreDub3D

Eh, I'm new to Max (a few days) and have much to learn. (Have used Maya for a while, tho). Guess I need to look into creasing, turbosmooth and smoothing groups. This is all comparable/relateable to soft/hard edges and vertex normals in Maya, no?

I think I get the gist of your tutorial, though. Thanks, Darth. Just let the turbosmooth add all those loops to keep your model from getting too rounded in Mudbox. And no need to spend all my time beveling edges I don't need beveled in my final mesh?

DarthNater

Right, just add you're loops in so everything looks square (easier to do when the faces are still fairly big), crease them all, then turbosmooth. I like to keep my edges smooth (I never take anything with a completely 90 degree edge into Zbrush). You will get a better final result (and half the time, the smooth edge is so small it looks hard when its baked out anyway.

carlo_c

Aredub3, that's a good example of what I mean. Those thin rectangular strips around the extruded leg bits, I'd add some loops to make the polygons more square and so they subdivide more evenly for sculpting but maybe I'm being too nitpicky.

I'll have to try some of the retopo methods, I haven't really tried that type of workflow before

AreDub3D

Hey Carlo_C ... was about to apologize for hijacking your thread. With your permission ...

So here's that model, I've gone back and taken out all of the bevels, including the ones I built in with my original extrusions.

So, Darth, what you're saying is I now need to go in and add edgeloops so that they are all evenly spaced. In other words, they would all need to be about the same distance apart as the height of the little "shelves" I have in the legs? Correct?



I've never done any re-topo either. If possible, I'd rather get it right going into Mudbox. But I could see how some sculpting would require re-topo no matter what.

DarthNater

Yes, you'd have to make you're squares the same size as your smallest face. So all the squares would have to be the same size as those shelves. Or, you could make those a separate mesh, then you wouldn't have have so many loops

AreDub3D

Got it. Will carry on from here. Making those things a separate object sounds overly complicated for a little prop like this -- plus it will be nice to sculpt the whole thing together. Will do those creases and add loops by hand. I guess I won't need to use Turbosmooth beyond that. Thanks again, guys. Will report back if I can make this into something worth looking at!

DarthNater

I would turbosmooth at least once after that, those shelves aren't THAT small. You're edges may be TOO smooth without at least 1 iteration

carlo_c

I like to do a couple of subdivides in Mudbox with smooth turned off then turn smooth on and go from there to retain the shape if you want hard edges on your model. Otherwise they can go a little soft especially if your adding detail to a material like metal/wood.

AreDub3D

Carlo - What do you mean "smooth turned off/on" in Mudbox? What setting are you talking about? Not the smoothing checkboxes in the map baking dialog box?

DarthNater

Right beside the subdivide mesh (in the menu) theres a box you can click and get subdivision options. If you uncheck smooth, it is basically doing the same thing as creasing and turbosmoothing. It will subdivide the faces, but retain the shape.

carlo_c

Mesh>Add new subdivision level click the little box and uncheck smooth positions then subdivide. It'll subdivide the mesh but not smooth it, so after doing that a couple of times and then smoothing it you'll retain more shape.

EDIT: I need to stop leaving pages open for so long lol before replying!

AreDub3D

Holy. I have *always* subdivided with shift-D -- from the very first Autodesk welcome video I watched -- so I've never even seen that option box. And all the other tutorials I've watched never showed that. But as a Maya user, I probably should have known to look for that little thing. Well, thanks for sharing. I'm glad I asked you to clarify!

Edit: Was about to try to assign that to alt-shift-D, but the option box doesn't have a slot for a hotkey.

AreDub3D

So I'm about to end all the extra loops I added for the top -- as begun in the top-right here. A couple q's if anyone's around.

1. I'm wondering if I should make the ends I'm closing farther underneath (and closer to the legs).

2. Should I subdivide the quads in the middle of the bottom side of the table? Or does that not matter since it won't be seen? This thing is only about 2.5ft tall.

3. Are the stretched quads making up the vertical sides of those shelves in the legs okay? Seems cutting them would just make the ones around them imbalanced.

Thanks again for the help!

Ruz

I just add loops where I need them. I have a base mesh that's fairly detailed and have never sculpted from a really simple mesh,it just takes too long.
My meshes are still generally square plys, but I would for example add more detail where I was going to sculpt the ears. I just find this easier and it suits the way I work

I think its best to carefully build up a library of generic meshes particularly for human heads then you can just start from a semi finished model.

AreDub3D

@Ruz - I'm curious, would you have just added loops to the mesh in my original image (with the beveled edges)? And then take it in to Mudbox/zBrush?

Obviously, I would like to retain the separation between the stones in the leg, but then, my final low-poly won't have that separation.

Anyone care to advise?

Here's a sketch of my intentions with this thing ...

Mark Dygert

The edges of the objects probably need to be reinforced with extra edge loops on either side. I think the first time you sub-divide the mesh its going to round everything out too much.

I'm also not sure what's going on in the upper right corner? It looks like there are some extra polys in there that don't need to be?

Also on the left side it looks like you have some loops terminating in the middle of some quads, you probably have triangles there. You should run a non-quad finder script to identify and fix any polys that have less than 4 edges. Polyboost/graphite modeling tools has this, so does Illusion Catalyst and there are other scripts specifically written for this like Monsters Who's my Quad

Neox

erm why exatly do you model it in one piece for sculpting? its made of different chunks o.o

AreDub3D

@Vig - That's where I had begun to close off the ends of the extra edge loops for the top. I posted at that point because I was unsure if it was going to give me good results. As for it all getting too rounded in Mudbox, that's why I had built in those bevels in my first posted image above, but later I learned (from DarthNater and Carlo_C) that there's a sub-divide option box where you can turn off smoothing (for the first couple sub-divides) ... I had always hit shift-D and never knew there was an option box. Anyway, that should avoid the rounding problem.

@Neox - Because I was going to place it as one piece, and I didn't want any identical pieces (Say, model and sculpt the leg once and duplicate). Can you tell me how you would do it?

Mark Dygert

AreDub3D wrote: »

Because I was going to place it as one piece, and I didn't want any identical pieces (Say, model and sculpt the leg once and duplicate). Can you tell me how you would do it?

Well the final low poly can be one piece but the high can be as many separate objects as you need. It's preferable to work that way because you can isolate the pieces and work on a higher level of detail then you would be able to with all the pieces out. You also don't need to mess around with creating transitions and sculpting it to look like separate objects.

make the high with as many pieces as you want, you can join them all together later, create the low around it.

I'm not really sure why you would want your low joined together either, they can be separate elements but one object.

AreDub3D

Thanks, Vig. Maybe I should say it this way: I want to place it in-engine as one piece. Also, I'm a Maya user new to Max, so I'm not familiar with the benefits of the element level. Sounds like in Maya how you can have two (or more) meshes "combined" in the same object, but not necessarily have any common merged verts nor even be touching.

So, this is interesting. This is a small object made of exactly 17 "rocks". Am I reading you right that you and Neox would model it as 17 individual rocks?

And what about the actual UVs and textures? At what point do you do that? I was going to add textures to the whole thing in Mudbox after sculpting the shapes. When does that come in when it's all in little pieces?

I haven't been doing this stuff long enough to be married to any way of doing anything, I just want to learn (and use) the methods that are going to get me the best look with the least headaches! So please let me know more specifically how you would approach it an I'll give it a go. Thanks again.

Mark Dygert

I would do something like this.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1306131/StonesBaseMesh.obj

Yep you're right separate pieces but combined to the same object, not necessarily conjoined. They don't really need to be combined to the same object depending on the sculpting app you might want them all as separate objects but share the same pivot point so they're easy to align.

The work flow I would use is:
- Base mesh (not going to be your final low poly, just needs to sub-d well)
- High poly sculpt (go crazy)
- Build the final low poly mesh (could be an optimized version of your base, but normally I export a lower level out of the sculpting app and build over the top of it)
- Unwrap.
- Bake diffuse, normal and AO maps.
- Finish the materials and export to whatever engine.

The high it might need to be unwrapped, in order to paint textures in mudbox? This probably doesn't need to happen but if it does don't worry about making the UV's perfect for the high they just need to be functional. The only unwrap that will really matter in the end is the unwrap on the final low object. You might not even need the high unwrapped at all... but you'll have to check into that.

I've never really painted my diffuse in the sculpting app that way, but you can bake a diffuse just like you would bake a normal map.

AreDub3D

Thanks a lot for taking the time, Vig.

Okay - I didn't even know you could work this way in Mudbox. So I'm not bringing each rock into Mudbox one at a time -- at first, I thought that's what you guys were saying. (and I was puzzled)

And for something like this, I'm thinking that creating the low-poly as a cage around the high-poly would make more sense than exporting out a low version from Mudbox.

Sorry, drinking coffee furiously, but feeling a little dense this morn.

DarthNater

Vig, aren't those extra loops in the corners going to cause issues if you try and sculpt the corners? I was always under the impression you had to keep everything the same size?

Neox

well but then it will be very hard to get hard egdes, of course you could do a very dense mesh, but basicly you could also aculpt over the slightly denser edges too, i wouldn't worry to much, if 90% of the mesh is right, the rest 10% are not such a big issue, we are talking here about millions of polygons to sculpt with per subtool/object and this is rock not a super smooth surface that needs to be perfect at any place it will be bumpy and noisy so minor issues really won't be a problem

ah and aredub3d, i'd do it just the way vig suggested

DarthNater

Neox wrote: »

well but then it will be very hard to get hard egdes, of course you could do a very dense mesh, but basicly you could also aculpt over the slightly denser edges too, i wouldn't worry to much, if 90% of the mesh is right, the rest 10% are not such a big issue, we are talking here about millions of polygons to sculpt with per subtool/object and this is rock not a super smooth surface that needs to be perfect at any place it will be bumpy and noisy so minor issues really won't be a problem

I'm just a picky bastard i guess haha. I always hated seeing the edges with super crisp details (I have to get over the whole "that won't bake out anyway" and just live with the details that will).

Oh, and Vig, this is number 4 :P

AreDub3D

Cool. Thanks once again you all.