Really basic hard surface question
Hey guys, I'm working on improving my hard surface abilities and I just had a couple questions that I thought maybe someone could help me out with.
My question is in regard to making assets for a film.
I'm using maya to make my assets and 3 keying them to make them all smoothed out. Is it important, if the topology is bad, to retopo the objects? Will this help with texturing and such later? or does it not matter for hard surface to have even topology?
Also, if i go into zbrush after i make the asset in maya and add things like screw holes and other minor details, should i use those in a normal map or is it better to make the details actually exist polygon wise?
thanks so much guys!
My question is in regard to making assets for a film.
I'm using maya to make my assets and 3 keying them to make them all smoothed out. Is it important, if the topology is bad, to retopo the objects? Will this help with texturing and such later? or does it not matter for hard surface to have even topology?
Also, if i go into zbrush after i make the asset in maya and add things like screw holes and other minor details, should i use those in a normal map or is it better to make the details actually exist polygon wise?
thanks so much guys!
Replies
Depends, is the hard mesh going to be animated? Is it going to bend? Will it shade weird? Will you be using a displacement mapping solution? All those should help you decide if you need a super clean topo or not, but generally speaking, neat or 'tidy' topo is the best of all worlds since if a change is required, it will be easier to make.
In movies, you will have two solutions, you either displacement map them or model them into the model itself, you will never use a Normal Map, unless it's a detail information map, or you're creating a non-hero piece that doesn't need extra render time.
Also, in regards to ZB, remember that ZB will require your mesh to have equal density of the surfaces, especially if you're sculpting the work on it so you don't get any weird stretching and such (ZB is simply moving polies around, not creating new polies) so this also has some weight about your first question.
If the topology is bad, but the model looks good, then you don't need to retopologize. In most cases, bad topology leads to bad shading and shapes, and should be retopped.
For screw holes, it's usually best to use 'floating' geometry; a separate object that isn't attached to the main object. If you look straight on, they should appear to blend into the base model, even if they're sitting slightly above the surface. This saves needing to run extra edge loops around the model just to add small details.