Neckband zculpting question
polycounter lvl 14
Hello , I wanted to try to make a jacket sculpt , but I am not sure how should I approach the modeling and the sculpting of the neckband part , you know because it folds on the shoulders and so I can't reach those areas , how do you usually work on those parts and how do you approach the baking and low poly modeling if you want it to be 3dimensional and not just baked on the low poly ? ( let's say that the low poly is a quite high poly one too ...
Replies
When it comes to baking and retoplogy, I let the normal map do the work when the collar is close to the main part of the jacket, and build actual geometry when it's further out. you's be surprised at what you can get away with normal mapping. Anyway, a picture speaks a thousand words, I hope :
1 I model a low poly mesh , barely resemblng what I need to do in 3dsmax, then I export the Obj and Import it in Zbrush , I sculpt it all and then I export the HP and the LP versions of the zbrush levels ... I reimport the LP version exported by Zbrush and I uvmap it ... then I reexport and I import both in Xnormal , there I usually launch the 3d viewer , setup the cage and then the ray distance tool , replace the HP ovb with the actual HD model and I bake ... I usually get good results with that ...
but the neck retorsion is worrying me because the cage would intrude and extrude , might create artefacts in the baking I suppose ... so I was thinking that perhaps I shoudl cut the neck part as a secondary mesh , but I didn't want to couse I wanted a continuity in the mesh flow ... so I am a bit undecided ...
I also not sure ot have understood what you actually do to bake and not have the projection issues artefacts ...
If I understood well you do a retopo over the HP and in the neck area you just use the Extrusion bits but not model the whole neck top and bottom covered part ...
but my issue is that I have to model that partand I wanted to create a full 3d neck also in the low poly ... so how to overcome that issue?
Typically I use 3 meshes. A basemesh (#1) that gets sculpt to the highpoly mesh (#2), and then a retopologized version for the end (#3). There are rare times when the basemesh and the final mesh can be the same, but usually it works out better if they're not.
If you want the collar as part of the final geometry, then setting up your cage correctly is crucial. You might still have the option to explode the bake, but a proper cage should still be able to take care of it (also, I'm not sure you need to worry about the ray distance when using one? I thought the cage overrides that in xnormal, so you'd set the cage up with more care around the collar to make sure the distances are where they need to be).
If you really don't need the collar as geometry, then its much easier to just have a simpler model, and let the normal map and texture take care of the rest.