Topology questions

Coffeehouse

I am currently at my first retopo.

At the inside of the ear I somehow always end up with a pentagon instead of a quad. I suppose I could make it into a quad and a triangle if that helps, but I was wondering if there is any way to turn it into just quads? Would it be an issue if the center of the ear remained a pentagon?

Also some areas like the face probably need more polys than the neck and body. So is there a perfect area where you can "thin out" the edgeloops before reaching the neck area and for thinning out is there a special way to do it? Because I get it done with all quads, but it looks very uneven (please see attached screenshot).

Last question: If I don't like a certain area, is it usually easier to fix it or to start over?

oglu

here one of my old baseheads... take a look and try to rebuild it...

Coffeehouse

Thanks man. Is this state of the art? I was aiming for a lot less Polys actually. But it  illustrates the general layout to me nonetheless.

oglu

depends on what you are working on... for a highend game char you would need much more poly...
cinematic chars does have 25 k+ poly only on the head (without hair).... and displacement on top...

Coffeehouse

Really? I thought like 20k Polys for a whole guy was already very generous. I thought detail is mostly achieved by normal maps and maybe displacement maps?

oglu

drakes head...
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ec/72/a5/ec72a5d3a0f1d76c1f9e4d3bca94fd6e.jpg

Coffeehouse

Oh well, but the more polys the more difficult it is to skin and rig I read. So i suppose in my learning state it would still be better to stick to the lower poly end, right? I am not actually working on a game yet ...

Eric Chadwick

Some of these guides might help you with the thinning out part...
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Subdivision_Surface_Modeling#Tips_.26_Tricks