Retopo workflow in 3D Coat

ElleKitty

Hello! I want to find out how to retopo and optionally bake multiple objects in 3D Coat without them all merging together when autopoed.

Here is what happens:
1. Import a multipart model
2. Work on it
3. Run autopo on it
4. They are retopologised... into a single mesh where they intersect, instead of staying separate.

Here's what crossed my mind as a workaround:
1. Import a multipart model
2. Work on it
3. Manually run autopo on every single one of the parts and get a separate retopo group for each
4. Manually merge all these into a single group; that's not gonna cut it with hundreds of pieces...

Here's what I want it to do:
1. Import a multipart model
2. Work on it
3. Run autopo, get one corresponding lowrez part for every highrez part that I dropped into 3DC's grinder.

I've seen many tutorials of retopologising a box, or a character skin, and they always and always retopo just a single-part model, sidestepping this issue and never teaching me what do do when I have a ton of them instead. Please help?

Neox

what do you want to retopo and for what use?

ElleKitty

It could be anything. It could be a character who has each bodypart as a different model; for example a different part for pants and a different one for shoes. Those pants will dip a bit into the shoes (or over them) but 3DC will say "These two parts will henceforth be one model" and will destructively merge them. Or a sculpted hair model; 3DC happily merges it with the head-model, perhaps because I am not setting it up properly. And overall 3DC looks like a great place to sculpt and then paint bulk models (such as an entire scene of rocks & ruins & pillars & whatnot) but when the time comes to export them, their meshes meld wherever any two models were touching. Or there would be numerous other reasons why I would want the parts in my models to visually overlap, but still remain separate meshes.