Re topologizing a rigged model

bpneal07

Hello I wanted to know if anybody had experience with reworking an already rigged character . I've been given a character to update and was told to use the model provided it's around 3,500 quad faces right now and they want it closer to 10 thousand quad faces. Does anybody have any experience with this?

BARDLER

What program are you using? The bones and controls will all be fine assuming no proportions will be changed, but the issue you are going to have is with the skinning of the character. There are a couple scripts, for Maya anyways, that can save weights based on location in world space. You could try to save the weights and then reload/transfer them to the new mesh. The script I use is called seithWeightTools, and it is super handy for saving weights of a mesh. This wont be perfect however and is going to require a lot of weight painting to be redone and polished.

bpneal07

I'm going to sculpt the model in Zbrush then move it over into topogun to re topologize it. It will still have the general shape but I'm trying to improve on what my employer has given me. I need to take the model from about 3,500 quads to 10,000 quads. Looking at what I have to work with I really need to change the face and hand geometry so the model can deform better. I'll look into the script you suggested, thanks for the input.

Edit: the original file is from maya

Mark Dygert

In max you would apply the skinwrap modifier, click, convert to skin and then delete the old mesh.

Maya probably has something similar.

Denny

Copy Skin Weights is your friend in Maya.

1. Make your new mesh
2. Bind new mesh to the same skeleton
3. Select old mesh + new mesh (in that order) and go to Skin menu > Edit Smooth Skin > Copy Skin Weights and try different settings. I recommend these settings:

Surface association: Closest Point on Surface
Influence association 1: Closest Joint
Influence association 2: One to One

You should now have a really good base for skin weights, if not identical to the low res mesh.

bpneal07

Ok this sounds great I'll give this a try and hopefully have some results in a few days. Thanks for the help everyone.