How best to low-poly a long coat...

JoeNoble

Hi guys, just looking for a bit of advice in regards to the low poly workflow for a character I'm working on. I'm having some trouble working out how to approach it due to the long coat and how it would theoretically move on a biped rig or under cloth simulation. Should I low poly the character without the coat first, then low poly the entire coat separately, over the top or would this likely cause clipping issues later on down the line?



I'm very interested to hear how you guys would tackle this, would be a great help.
Cheers!

PyrZern

I'd probably model him lowpoly first, then extrude his belt-line down to become the coat, on top of his pants. Will that give you shading/smoothing group error ?

lotet

the answer really depends on your final platform and polycount.
If its midpoly/last gen I would make it a part of the upper body.
if its next-gen and you know what your doing, just make the whole separated and then simulate it.

if you are gonna rig the guy and NOT use any simulations, I would strongly suggest getting some bones in there for the coat, kind of like a tail comming from his hip.

these are just 2 random ideas I had on doing it, not sure if they are that smart, but I would probably go with the left one, the right one Ive never tested out, but I think it should work in theory lol xD

JoeNoble

Thanks guys, I think your suggestion on the left lotet is how I'm going to tackle it. I'll zig-zag some geometry in behind the coat in front of the shirt to allow for some freedom of movement between the two pieces of clothing too. Thanks!