FroTools looks good but also agree with Pancakes, if you know how to use Zremesher you can actually get some pretty good results. Still requires some clean up - doing some tests on what's faster out of Zremesh and retopo by hand atm.
FroTools looks good but also agree with Pancakes, if you know how to use Zremesher you can actually get some pretty good results. Still requires some clean up - doing some tests on what's faster out of Zremesh and retopo by hand atm.
No. It's fine for sculpting, but don't use Zremesher to generate your low poly. You really need to be making your mesh by hand. Zremesher is just not predictable or reliable enough to get good clean low poly meshes. Also you have very little control over how it generates geometry. It really doesn't take that long to generate a low poly mesh. Don't be lazy an just accept whatever you get out of Zremesher just because it takes a few seconds.
No. It's fine for sculpting, but don't use Zremesher to generate your low poly. You really need to be making your mesh by hand. Zremesher is just not predictable or reliable enough to get good clean low poly meshes. Also you have very little control over how it generates geometry. It really doesn't take that long to generate a low poly mesh. Don't be lazy an just accept whatever you get out of Zremesher just because it takes a few seconds.
Maybe you misunderstood, as I finished by saying "It still requires clean up." I meant that you can get a good base for your low poly to start with and then clean this mesh up for the final in game mesh, but it may be faster to create a low poly from scratch, something I'm still testing out.
Not sure how that sounds like "Just Zremesh and you've got your low poly!" XD
You are still accepting what Zremesher outputs in terms of denisty and edgeflow, which you have very little control of. Let say you are pushing out more lowpoly meshes like what Riot makes with LoL. There is no way Zremesher is going to give you ideal topology for that. Or try to use Zremsher to get an exact tri count you are looking for without going into extensive rework that will take more time than remeshing it by hand. The best meshes I have seen kicked out of Zremesher still need a ton rework to get them to work as a deformable low poly models. Also I like to build my low poly with uvs in mind. I place geometry to match up with my seams something that Zremesher doesn't do very well.
I think Zremesher is great to get you better geometry for sculpting, but I would really not use it for any part of the low poly mesh creation. You need control when it comes to lowpoly meshes and using Zremesher even as a base is still going to give you less than ideal results. Again it really doesn't take that long to remesh by hand and the extra control you get to ensure you have a good mesh is worth the extra time.
@Alphavader I didn't see any features in that video that seemed near as good as the Contours Retopology Tool for Blender. From what I've seen retopology in Maya is way slower than Contours Retolopgy Tool.
I'm "self-taught" modeler. And the first "tutorial" I saw of modeling was this guy who was just making up an ogre like character with poly-to-poly technique, without reference.
I really picked up some bad habits from watching that, because it shaped my entire approach to modeling from that point on. The confusion resulting from my own bad habits is what leads me to try to avoid retopo by hand as much as possible.
You're right it's probably best to do it by hand.
Retopo by hand is tedious but definitely worth it if you decide to do animation. In fact, I'd go one further to say that if you want to do any animation that looks professional, it is absolutely essential.
If you want to do just static figures for rendering then you very well might be able to get by with Zremesher and avoid the headaches.
Check out hippydrome and look at the topo samples there. Every point has to have a reason for existing and provide a service to the mesh. This isn't possible with automation. I highly recommend his book if you're into animation... and check out his free videos.
The reason I don't use automation is because while it does provide a starting point for the topology, that advantage is cancelled by the fact that it paints you into corners where you end up erasing or doing wrong topo just to match your topo with the computer generated stuff.
Personally, I wouldn't be looking for a topogun alternative.
The software is great, I personnally enjoyed it more than any other one I tried when it come to topology.
As much as I love 3d coat so much, for me it really doesn't even come close to how fluid and fast I can work with topogun. Maybe that's just because I'm so used to topogun tho.
Plus at a 100$ only, if you are looking for a retopology tool only, its the way to go.
Oherwise 3d coat sure is the way to go, I couldn't leave without painting in it anymoe
Marie just out of curiosity, howcome you think Topogun has a faster workflow than 3DC? Apart from being comfortable with it, wondered if Topogun had any amazing tools for retopo. Personally love 3DC, the workflow is super fast
@Alphavader I didn't see any features in that video that seemed near as good as the Contours Retopology Tool for Blender. From what I've seen retopology in Maya is way slower than Contours Retolopgy Tool.
Yeah - could be, could be not - didnt said something against blender
iam not a blender user imho - so, do what you prefer^^
I think at the end - ppl. shouldn't clinch so much which "the best tool" and "the newest stuff" - its all about youre outcome/ youre art!
Personally, I wouldn't be looking for a topogun alternative.
The software is great, I personnally enjoyed it more than any other one I tried when it come to topology.
As much as I love 3d coat so much, for me it really doesn't even come close to how fluid and fast I can work with topogun. Maybe that's just because I'm so used to topogun tho.
Plus at a 100$ only, if you are looking for a retopology tool only, its the way to go.
Oherwise 3d coat sure is the way to go, I couldn't leave without painting in it anymoe
I'm a topogun license holder. I like the program too, but it's way too buggy and this is a result of not having been developed further. I guess if it works on your system then you're set... so long as you don't update anything that might throw it for a loop. I personally don't see this as acceptable in a professional software... neither do I see as acceptable the fact that it's forums & updates are dead (read that as: the developer has gone MIA) yet it's promotion and payment processing is very much alive and updated (read that as: they don't have a problem taking your money).
On my work computer it works... on my home computer, for which I paid for the new license I doesn't.
I guess I could try to ask on the forum for support... Oh, that's right, I can't because the forum is dead :shifty:
But like I said, if it works for you, you're fine. I just don't think it should be a crapshoot. A professional software needs updates and support in my book - just a personal preference.
I don't think it was pure coincidence that topogun was at the peak of popularity when the developer was active both on the forums and on the updates.
I'm just getting into 3d coat now but I really see the potential. Now if the topogun developer comes back and decides to update things I think it could give 3d coat a run for its money. But so far, he seems more interested in just taking your money.
I use Topogun on a pretty much daily basis, and I still like it. My problem with 3D coat was that there was no way to pin border edges (it's been ages since I last used it though, so this may have changed). I use Topogun's relax brush a lot, which works great with pinned edges.
Torch Maybe it has all to do with me being more used to topogun but here's some little difference between the two that bugged me.
First for some reason,
For exemple this morning, as a test I tried importing a mesh into 3d coat and then into topogun.
In 3d coat a perfectly fine mesh took fews minutes to be imported (it is a high poly model, around 3 millions yes) but then the import failed because the model had booleen or some thing like that (wich it doesn't.
It imported within second inside of topogun without any issue.
I tried importing a decimated mesh of a little simple object, decimated.
so a mesh of about 250k. In 3d coat it turned out all exploded for some reason. was all good in topogun.
Otherwise it's pretty much just the fact that in topogun all you need is two mouse button. One to draw polygones, and the other one to move it around once it's drawn. (and shift maybe but that's about it)
In 3d coat when I try to do that I always get stuck making polygons forever and to get out of the tool I try to use the left mouse button like you would in 3ds max or topogun and nope. The only way I found is to go hit esc all the way on the keyboard wich I find very silly.
But I know I know, I could probably chance my keyboard shortcut to something that works better for me, but for some reason I hate doing so and I always use the original UI etc, I like when the software is efficient for me without having to customize it..
supermoby Oh really, I didn't really notice the developper was MIA or anything like that. I didn't really take a look at the forum or anything like that. I first tried the program maybe... 4 years ago whem I was still a student and damn that thing was buggy.
Random crashes all the time, very risky to loose mesh etc.
Maybe I am just lucky but yah I use to experience that kind of crash back in the days but not anymore. It is pretty stable no matter how big my meshes are and random crashes really doesn't happen very often. I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble. And now that you say it I hope the developper will come and update the software once in a while.
I have used zremesher with curves to get the best results but honestly I still prefer 3d coat as it feels btter and more intuitive to me. It is really very awesome app.
supermoby Oh really, I didn't really notice the developper was MIA or anything like that. I didn't really take a look at the forum or anything like that. I first tried the program maybe... 4 years ago whem I was still a student and damn that thing was buggy.
Random crashes all the time, very risky to loose mesh etc.
Maybe I am just lucky but yah I use to experience that kind of crash back in the days but not anymore. It is pretty stable no matter how big my meshes are and random crashes really doesn't happen very often. I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble. And now that you say it I hope the developper will come and update the software once in a while.
I have no problem with the developer moving on, but not blindsiding the customers.
Here's the topogun forum. You'll notice no response for many questions left to die... (today is Jul 1)
At the same time, here's topoguns twitter (see attach) where you'll see a post a recently as June 16th (that one promoting the use of topogun - for smoothing of points only - by Scott Metzger etc...)
So there's time to promote the product, but not develop and fix or answer questions about it on the forum? Not cool!
I switched over to 3d coat after a few years using Topogun. I haven't looked back. I had lots of small annoyances and issues with Topogun that were never addressed. 3d coat has its own weird annoyances but overall I prefer it for my retopo needs.
Zremesher is awesome for a lot of things, especially cleaning up sculpting meshes, but it doesn't get you very far when you need to make your mesh 350 tris.
I remember Topogun had a nasty problem with moving multiple vertices at once: They immediately get projected to the camera "plane" instantly wrecking everything. I saw a thread from a guy asking about that exact issue and no answer ever. Wrapit is also a cool plugin but I think it's also dead development-wise.
I'll give 3Dcoat a spin if so many here like it so much.
+1 for 3D-Coat. The UV tools are fantastic too. When doing bake tests its so refreshing to just unwrap with 1-click in 3d-coat and get pretty good results. They also released their new unwrapping algorithm (GU unwrap), which is a huge improvement.
Although, with Maya 2014/2015, I find myself using quad draw for a lot of things.
Replies
No. It's fine for sculpting, but don't use Zremesher to generate your low poly. You really need to be making your mesh by hand. Zremesher is just not predictable or reliable enough to get good clean low poly meshes. Also you have very little control over how it generates geometry. It really doesn't take that long to generate a low poly mesh. Don't be lazy an just accept whatever you get out of Zremesher just because it takes a few seconds.
Maybe you misunderstood, as I finished by saying "It still requires clean up." I meant that you can get a good base for your low poly to start with and then clean this mesh up for the final in game mesh, but it may be faster to create a low poly from scratch, something I'm still testing out.
Not sure how that sounds like "Just Zremesh and you've got your low poly!" XD
I think Zremesher is great to get you better geometry for sculpting, but I would really not use it for any part of the low poly mesh creation. You need control when it comes to lowpoly meshes and using Zremesher even as a base is still going to give you less than ideal results. Again it really doesn't take that long to remesh by hand and the extra control you get to ensure you have a good mesh is worth the extra time.
Retopo by hand is tedious but definitely worth it if you decide to do animation. In fact, I'd go one further to say that if you want to do any animation that looks professional, it is absolutely essential.
If you want to do just static figures for rendering then you very well might be able to get by with Zremesher and avoid the headaches.
Check out hippydrome and look at the topo samples there. Every point has to have a reason for existing and provide a service to the mesh. This isn't possible with automation. I highly recommend his book if you're into animation... and check out his free videos.
The reason I don't use automation is because while it does provide a starting point for the topology, that advantage is cancelled by the fact that it paints you into corners where you end up erasing or doing wrong topo just to match your topo with the computer generated stuff.
I will check this out. Thanks
The software is great, I personnally enjoyed it more than any other one I tried when it come to topology.
As much as I love 3d coat so much, for me it really doesn't even come close to how fluid and fast I can work with topogun. Maybe that's just because I'm so used to topogun tho.
Plus at a 100$ only, if you are looking for a retopology tool only, its the way to go.
Oherwise 3d coat sure is the way to go, I couldn't leave without painting in it anymoe
Yeah - could be, could be not - didnt said something against blender
iam not a blender user imho - so, do what you prefer^^
I think at the end - ppl. shouldn't clinch so much which "the best tool" and "the newest stuff" - its all about youre outcome/ youre art!
@ PyrZern: welcome!
I'm a topogun license holder. I like the program too, but it's way too buggy and this is a result of not having been developed further. I guess if it works on your system then you're set... so long as you don't update anything that might throw it for a loop. I personally don't see this as acceptable in a professional software... neither do I see as acceptable the fact that it's forums & updates are dead (read that as: the developer has gone MIA) yet it's promotion and payment processing is very much alive and updated (read that as: they don't have a problem taking your money).
On my work computer it works... on my home computer, for which I paid for the new license I doesn't.
I guess I could try to ask on the forum for support... Oh, that's right, I can't because the forum is dead :shifty:
But like I said, if it works for you, you're fine. I just don't think it should be a crapshoot. A professional software needs updates and support in my book - just a personal preference.
I don't think it was pure coincidence that topogun was at the peak of popularity when the developer was active both on the forums and on the updates.
I'm just getting into 3d coat now but I really see the potential. Now if the topogun developer comes back and decides to update things I think it could give 3d coat a run for its money. But so far, he seems more interested in just taking your money.
+1
First for some reason,
For exemple this morning, as a test I tried importing a mesh into 3d coat and then into topogun.
In 3d coat a perfectly fine mesh took fews minutes to be imported (it is a high poly model, around 3 millions yes) but then the import failed because the model had booleen or some thing like that (wich it doesn't.
It imported within second inside of topogun without any issue.
I tried importing a decimated mesh of a little simple object, decimated.
so a mesh of about 250k. In 3d coat it turned out all exploded for some reason. was all good in topogun.
Otherwise it's pretty much just the fact that in topogun all you need is two mouse button. One to draw polygones, and the other one to move it around once it's drawn. (and shift maybe but that's about it)
In 3d coat when I try to do that I always get stuck making polygons forever and to get out of the tool I try to use the left mouse button like you would in 3ds max or topogun and nope. The only way I found is to go hit esc all the way on the keyboard wich I find very silly.
But I know I know, I could probably chance my keyboard shortcut to something that works better for me, but for some reason I hate doing so and I always use the original UI etc, I like when the software is efficient for me without having to customize it..
supermoby Oh really, I didn't really notice the developper was MIA or anything like that. I didn't really take a look at the forum or anything like that. I first tried the program maybe... 4 years ago whem I was still a student and damn that thing was buggy.
Random crashes all the time, very risky to loose mesh etc.
Maybe I am just lucky but yah I use to experience that kind of crash back in the days but not anymore. It is pretty stable no matter how big my meshes are and random crashes really doesn't happen very often. I'm sorry to hear you are having trouble. And now that you say it I hope the developper will come and update the software once in a while.
I have no problem with the developer moving on, but not blindsiding the customers.
Here's the topogun forum. You'll notice no response for many questions left to die... (today is Jul 1)
http://www.topogun.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=13
example unanswered from 2012: http://www.topogun.com/forum/showthread.php?t=695
At the same time, here's topoguns twitter (see attach) where you'll see a post a recently as June 16th (that one promoting the use of topogun - for smoothing of points only - by Scott Metzger etc...)
So there's time to promote the product, but not develop and fix or answer questions about it on the forum? Not cool!
I´d appreciate some offset features to be able to build topology, that doesn´t sink into the highres.
Zremesher is awesome for a lot of things, especially cleaning up sculpting meshes, but it doesn't get you very far when you need to make your mesh 350 tris.
I'll give 3Dcoat a spin if so many here like it so much.
Although, with Maya 2014/2015, I find myself using quad draw for a lot of things.