3ds Max Retopology - viewport wireframes

Elyaradine

Hey there

Does anyone know of a way to make one model's wireframe always appear on top of another model in Max?

The reference/sculpted model is such that if I make it transparent, it becomes really hard to tell what's going on (it's got quite a few layers of cloth and such). However, if it's opaque, the retopo model becomes partially hidden by the reference model, making it kind of difficult to tell if a piece of the model's been done or not, and whether the polygons have been created in the right place.

vargatom

There's an option to turn edged faces on only for the selected object. You'll also want to use the material's opacity setting to make it transparent, and set viewport transparency quality to "best".

miauu

Are you trying to do something like this:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THQhZTli09Y[/ame]

This is the script that I use to switch object visibility by layer or by object:

macroScript DisplyByLayerObjectToogle
category:"miauu"
tooltip:"byLayer<>byObj"
buttontext:"L<>O"
(
    for o in selection do
    (
        case o.displayByLayer of
        (
            (false): o.displayByLayer = true
            (true): o.displayByLayer = false
        )
    )
)

Ace-Angel

If you want a proper solution in Max for retopology, I suggest either MaxRetopo (a free script) or Wrapit (commercial script).

Crispy4004

He is talking specifically about not having to alter the opacity. There are definitely cases where a transparent base can make the retopology process confusing.

With a little outside thinking, you may be able to write a script to do it in Max. I found a way of doing it in Maya with later versions of my custom Retopo tool.

Elyaradine

Thanks for the help, guys!

Here's what I mean:


If the reference mesh is transparent, it's hard to see its forms. But if it's opaque, I can't see parts of my retopo mesh.

I've been working around it by breaking the reference sculpt into a bunch of separate meshes, making the transparency come through cleaner. It's just a bit of a pain, as in some cases I keep having to switch between those as target meshes as I go.

I'll take a look at MaxRetopo and Wrapit; perhaps they do some kind of viewport voodoo.

renderhjs

a custom dx shader might do the trick, where it draws the wireframe part with a offset z-depth sorting towards the camera.
I usually create a wireframe material with a 100 self illuminating color, but yeah sometimes it just intersects which can be annoying.

Mark Dygert

There is an offset option built into the retopo tool in the graphite modeling tools. It will push the retopo away from the surface. You can then use a push modifier with a negative value to shrink it back a bit once you're finished.

You can also animate the transparency of the material that is applied to the reference 0-100%. That way you can fade it in and out of the scene. It's often that precise control over the opacity that lets you see the key differences between the two pieces.

You could also animate the material on the retopo so it goes the opposite direction 100-0%. That way as you scrub one fades out while the other fades in. You might want frame zero to be both at 100%?

Also if the model is separate elements you can break those off and retopo just those pieces while isolated. Your high poly can be a collection of high poly meshes that gets added to the RTT projection modifier, it doesn't need to be one mesh. If for some weird reason it really needed to be, you could join them together again before baking. Also max works faster if your high poly is separate objects, because of the way it preforms adaptive degradation.

SpeCter

I used another color scheme in my case, black wireframe with blue points(like in topogun i guess)
Turning on backface culling helps to get a better view at the reference mesh too.

Elyaradine

You guys are just way too awesome. Thank you!

Crispy4004

Mark Dygert wrote: »

There is an offset option built into the retopo tool in the graphite modeling tools. It will push the retopo away from the surface. You can then use a push modifier with a negative value to shrink it back a bit once you're finished. You can also animate the transparency of the material that is applied to the reference 0-100%.

That is somewhat similar to the older method I tried in Maya before I figured out a better way. Actually probably better than my older approach, which was to push the base mesh in instead because Maya lacks the offset modifier for modeling. It should help keep the clipping down drastically, but it definitely is still more a workaround than a solution.

almighty_gir

try applying a shell modifier to the retopo mesh?

vargatom

Or what wrapit does - duplicate the reference mesh and apply a Push modifier to the copy, and set this mesh to be the target for your retopo projection. Then hide it and use the original mesh as visual reference.

What's cool in Wrapit is that it uses nearest surface for the retopo instead of normal or view-based projections so it's actually quite easy to work with. Topogun sometimes drove me crazy when moving a vertex resulted in projecting it onto the other side of the reference object...

Mark Dygert

Yea wrapit is great if you've got $30 sitting around it will pay for itself pretty quickly. I end up using it for much more than retopo too. The automatic quad mesh is great for bashing together a quick, evenly quad'ed base mesh for sculpting.

I like MaxRetopo too, but its a bit buggy and I always goof up the target and source meshes, I've also had it flat out refuse to work on several occasions. But when it works, its great. I'm sure MaxRetopo2 is going to rock I won't mind shelling out some cash for it.

SpeCter

Mark isn´t it 1.5 coming out? Never heard of 2.0 o.O

Elyaradine

Out of interest, I've had some success in the viewport by switching to Direct3D, and using Hardware Shading. It's pretty much the look I was hoping for. I was just fooled at first because for some reason I couldn't see vertices, but some other Polycount threads helped fix that for me.

Oh, Nitrous, thou art a double-edged sword.

Thanks again for the help; I'm using a few of your suggestions anyway.

Bibendum

Elyaradine wrote: »

Not to derail this but how did you get only one object to show up with edged faces?

SpeCter

1.Solution:Viewport Configuration -> Display Selected with Edged Faces
2.Solution:Apply a material with wireframe mode to the working mesh.