Question about character creation workflow & retopology. Please help!
Hello everyone! First time posting here. I've been checking around these forums for a while now but only now i've decided to post something. I have to say i have seen really great things and wonderful creations in this place and many of your work is truly inspiring.
Any way, right now my goal is to become a 3d modeller but i can't afford any courses or studys so i'm doing it all by my self. I can hardly find time to solve so many doubts that pop up every day so that's the main reason made me finally decide to post. I'm in the process of elaborating a portfolio with a few characters i have, but all of them are in a freeze state due to my unknowing.
My biggest issues come with the workflow to follow, i get lost in so many ways that some times i think i'm wasting my time.
Well, enough for the introduction xD.
So, right now i've created this character, all done within zbrush:
And right now, it's composed of various subtools as you may expect. Some of those tools, like the t-shirt are in dynamesh state (still needs some work and the zremesher destroys the collar), and others like the pants or the boots have been zremeshed to get a not so good topology, so here come my doubts:
Stepping into the retopo phase, should i retopo every subtool by it's own, one by one? or should i export a merged and decimated version of all subtools into an .obj and then get the low poly in topogun?
If i do the first thing, (one by one) will i have to retopo again all together to get a single mesh?
In the second case, if i create a low poly version of all merged subtools, will i be able to get the normals and the rest of the maps. How does one get the Uv's if its all one single mesh?
As you can see, i'm really lost in how to procede once the modelling phase is done. I don't know where to go from here.
Anyway, i think that is all for now. Still have tons of questions and doubts but i don't wanna scare you guys xD or you telling me to go school or something haha.
Thank you and sorry for the loooooong talk!!
Any way, right now my goal is to become a 3d modeller but i can't afford any courses or studys so i'm doing it all by my self. I can hardly find time to solve so many doubts that pop up every day so that's the main reason made me finally decide to post. I'm in the process of elaborating a portfolio with a few characters i have, but all of them are in a freeze state due to my unknowing.
My biggest issues come with the workflow to follow, i get lost in so many ways that some times i think i'm wasting my time.
Well, enough for the introduction xD.
So, right now i've created this character, all done within zbrush:
And right now, it's composed of various subtools as you may expect. Some of those tools, like the t-shirt are in dynamesh state (still needs some work and the zremesher destroys the collar), and others like the pants or the boots have been zremeshed to get a not so good topology, so here come my doubts:
Stepping into the retopo phase, should i retopo every subtool by it's own, one by one? or should i export a merged and decimated version of all subtools into an .obj and then get the low poly in topogun?
If i do the first thing, (one by one) will i have to retopo again all together to get a single mesh?
In the second case, if i create a low poly version of all merged subtools, will i be able to get the normals and the rest of the maps. How does one get the Uv's if its all one single mesh?
As you can see, i'm really lost in how to procede once the modelling phase is done. I don't know where to go from here.
Anyway, i think that is all for now. Still have tons of questions and doubts but i don't wanna scare you guys xD or you telling me to go school or something haha.
Thank you and sorry for the loooooong talk!!
Replies
Don't really understand your second question about the UVs
Well, the reason is basically, I don't know the next step. As dumb as it may seem, i'm actually lacking a lot of technical knowledge if you may call it that way. I've only been doing modelling for about a year and right now i'm only starting to get outside zbrush and using other programs.
Considering the model is composed of various subtools what would be the next thing to do? How would you do it, or how is it done in a production environment?
Should I take each subtool and retopo each one and get a low version of them?
Should I merge all subtools into one, decimate it an then get it to topogun and retopo there? If so, as to my understanding, once in topogun i should get the low poly version in one single mesh of around 40k tris. If i do it this way, is it possible to get the UV's (and every other map) of the shirt, pants, boots and every single part as a separate?
Thanks!
There are 2 workflows you can go with:
1 - Modular character: retop the base character and all the parts separately. This way you can swap out clothing in-engine for variation. Only rebuilding
topology that will be seen(i.e - between his back and inside of the coat will never be seen so don't rebuild that area) UV and bake each element
individually(explode bake or match by mesh name)
2 - Single mesh: merge all tools and rebuild a single mesh on top of a decimated version. You can still UV each part by splitting seams where one ends
and the other stops(i.e - a seam between the neckline of the tshirt or the top of the boots, etc) Baking will have to be done as a single mesh.
For a simple character(NPC/low-end or Mobile/background) I would go option 2. For a character like yours I would go option 1. Here's an 'oldie but a goodie", Mashru Mishu's 'Street Cop' tutorial. It's from afew years back but still very relevant and breaks the pipeline/workflow down very nicely.
http://area.autodesk.com/tutorials/street_cop_workflow_by_mashru_mishu
Also, check the Wiki here as there's a wealth of knowledge/info.
Regarding the first option, i have a few questions:
So, you say creating a modular character gives you the possibility of swapping clothes. But then you recommend not to rebuild the back of my character. Didn't quite get this. If later on i want to use both versions, one whit the coat and another without it, i think i should retopo the entire t shirt and the coat wouldn't I?
Also, when i retopo the coat, wouldn't i need to rebuild everything, meaning outside and inside? Because the the inner lower part of the coat it's visible trough the legs. How should i approach this?
Thanks again!
However you don't need the inside back of the coat where it touches the shirt, as this is never seen no matter how the character moves.
You do need the inside bottom of the coat, as it can be seen between the legs. You will have to decide how far up you need to model, based on your animations and/or realtime cloth sim, how much they will reveal.
Yes, @aspa I meant the back of the coat not the back of the character/shirt. As Eric said, you only need to model what will be visible when the character is animated.
That solved a couple of my doubts. I'm gonna get right on to it.
I'll probably be back later (maybe in a couple of days) with more questions if you don't mind.
Thanks a lot!!