[Maya] Cleaning up topology / removing unused vertices?

twinmatrix

I just made a model in ZBrush and need to finish it in Maya. The model, however, has waaaay too many unused vertices. There are a lot of completely flat fields covered with hundreds of vertices that have no use whatsoever.

I know there's a Clean Topology function for Subdiv Surfaces. Is there something like this for polygon meshes?

I tried Merge, but that just merges all the selected vertices into a center point. And I can't really do it by hand, because the model is way way too detailed. It was my first ZBrush model and I kind of overdid it on the Divisions.

Does anyone know about a function or plug-in to do this? It sounds simple: compare the x,y,z of vertices and if they are a completely flat surface, delete the edges/vertices between them to make a clean square.



I haven't done UV Texturing yet so if that messes up it's np.



I'm pretty sure I could delete half the vertices if there was a function or a script or...

twinmatrix

Small update: I tried using Reduce, but because some of the flat surfaces are connected to non-flat surfaces, I get some bad results:



Is there a plug-in or script or function that JUST reduces/combines the flat or square vertices? So I don't get this kind of bad result, where 10 non-flat edges lead to the same vertex?

rube

Whats your goal for this mesh? If you just want to get something you can work with in maya you can try using Decimation Master on your original in zbrush.. that will clean a lot of the coplanar faces up. If you want a game ready mesh, I'd still run it through decimation master, but then rebuild it in maya with proper geometry.