[Intersecting Geo] When is it okay to intersect geo?

Brian "Panda" Choi

Hey Polycount:

Quick question, something I'm noticing again while I'm retopologizing this new character.

So I have a body that's mostly symmetrical, so retopology for that is easy, but then I have asymmetrical elements that overlap on top of the symmetrical mesh that COULD be retopologized as one, but I'm wondering if it's professionally (and more importantly, rigging-wise) okay for me to just model these as intersecting geometries and intersect them later after bake?


For example, an asymmetrical waistband that slightly covers one side of a symmetrical leather belt.

And how do you guys generally deal with asymmetrical elements that are intimately close to symmetrical elements during a retopo?

passerby

depends, retopo over it, or you could have it as a seprate element, and intersect, just remember if it intersects while bakeing, you might have to do a exploded bake.

Just do what looks best, as long as you final result looks good, it dost matter how you got there.

cptSwing

If I understand the question correctly, it would also be dependant on how you'd like the mesh to deform, preferably without stuff jutting into other stuff ;-)

Bruno Afonseca

If you retopo as a single mesh, you might not be able to mirror the texture so well. Think about it!

Also, if you're talking about hanging stuff like pouches and whatnot might be worth making as a separate mesh so they can have their own bone and have secondary animation.
In this rig/animation I made, you can notice that the harness and pouches are separate elements:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLZg3LOWIEU"]boar@run WIP - YouTube[/ame]

JRay

So with the separate meshes such as the harness and pouches do you model the backsides that you wouldn't really see because they are up against the character or would that be a waste of polygons/UV space? If you take the boar that you posted as an example, do you do the backside of the gold part on the front of the harness?

Eric Chadwick

JRay wrote: »

do you model the backsides?

Usually no, unless it could be seen during an animation (like if it flopped upwards) or if it caused shadowing artifacts.