Retopo folds/creases

Ahoburg

Hey, guys. Happy New Year. I've got a question. I'm trying to retopo my character's coat and it has a lot of deep folds and various creases. I want a final mesh to be "next-gen", so just a simple cylinder won't cut it. So, what's the best way to go about retoping all this? At the moment, I tried to retopo every height and low, but in the end I got a not-very-pretty topology. The bake and uv's are nice and all, but the process still doesn't feel optimal. Any advice? Here's how it looks now:
With highpoly for reference

peanut™

Ahoburg, heya mate

There is no shortcuts or schemes you can do to retopo something like what you're showing. I would simply take the Highpoly and remove some edges and polygons the old hard way, or use zbrush decimate to have a not too high start and work through all the way.

I hope this helps

Zeldrik

You could give ZRemesher with some ZRemesher guides a go. It wont get you all the way there but it could provide a decent clean start.

peanut™

yes of course Zremesher ...

throttlekitty

This looks pretty dense for the average game and most of the folds contribute very little to the silhouette. It's easy to get caught up in the novelty of nice details, try zooming out to the average view you'll be seeing this character and see how you feel about the shape and density.

That said, if you're getting a lot of closeups and don't mind spending the time for each character, it works fairly well.

Ahoburg

Thanks, guys. I'll try Zremesher later, maybe it'll give me good results or at least a starting point.

Yeah, the retopo mesh is probably far too dense and kinda ugly. I've been looking at models from Battlefield 4 and similar meshes had like five times fewer polys and still look decent.

I want to translate the details and silhouette, but not sure if a dense mesh is a good idea. And if it is a good idea, not sure about my approach to it.

CheeseOnToast

I generally start with a basic quad mesh, then add additional cuts to describe the major peaks and valleys. Let the normal map deal with the smaller stuff. When it comes to weighting for animation and making LODs, you'll have an easier time of it.

Dylan Brady

yeah CheeseOnToast raised a good point. I would say that more importantly than how well you represent the folds, is how well the topology will deform.
Animators prefer clean edgeloops, especially around the joint areas. So when im making the lowpoly I try to ensure that there's no edges directly over the pivot point of a joint on the inside, and that there's plenty of edgeloops on the outside to keep from looking too jaggey in the most extreme poses.