Sculpt multi res or low poly base mesh?

greevar

Which do you prefer, sculpting low res meshes or retopolgizing high poly sculpts? I'm trying my hand at sculpting for the first time and I'm wondering which is easier for getting good results? Or should I say, which is easier for someone new to it?

Ben Apuna

I'd say it depends a bit on what you are making. Ideally you want to sculpt from a perfect base mesh made for sculpting then retopo/rebuild a optimized low poly mesh that doesn't lose any of the silhouette and bakes well.

Attempting to uprez a optimized low poly mesh and sculpt on it usually doesn't lead to the smoothest sculpting experience, at least for me anyway.

One approach is to build a "mid-poly" that can be both subdivided to a sculpting mesh and also optimized down to a low poly.

PredatorGSR

Ben Apuna wrote: »

One approach is to build a "mid-poly" that can be both subdivided to a sculpting mesh and also optimized down to a low poly.

For hard surface stuff, I usually take this approach. For organic stuff I usually go from a super basic blockout straight to the sculpt.

A lot of it is trial and error to figure out what is easier to sculpt and what is easier to model, and where you draw the line. And much of that is personal preference. It isn't something anyone can really tell you beyond general guidelines like keep quads and evenly divided meshes, you've got to try it for yourself and see why certain geometry works better than others when taken into a sculpting program.

tristamus

I always just build a really quick low-poly in maya that gets close to my idea of what i want my object to look like, if I cant just do it within zbrush, and then sculpt the crap out of it. I then just retopologize and voila.