Photogrammetry/retopology Question

KurtR

I have a client that gave me a photoscanned file of a drill. He had not used any dulling spray so the textures wasn't very good. he doesn't know much about 3D so I have tried to learn him some concepts during the process, and he only wanted to have his model fixed so he could show off what his scanner could do through using Sketchfab.

I used zbrush for the process. created a copy, decimated, remeshed, fixed holes then redid the UVs. Then I took it into Xnormal and reporjected the textures onto the new set. I also took the time to create some AO and spec maps for him to make it pop a little extra, while I had to had-paint some really bad stuff in PS. For showing off a scanned model I was thinking I shouldn't do any thing more since it would not be representative of his scanner.

In the end he wasn't satisfied. I have instructed him about having to use a dulling spray on shiny surfaces and that there was only that much I could do with what I was provided. So I am thinking about doing a retopolology so I can recreate hardness. Now the topology isn't following any of the important creases in the model.

So Im a little at a loss and wondering if anyone has any suggestion. Zbrush dosen't pick up on all the details I need to have there, so the only way I see it is to redo the whole model by hand. Why I am thinking about this, is so I can both get a proper ID mask in the end, and sharpen all the important edges for a new projection.

I do however think this is getting off base from what I should do for him, but I wanted to see if there were any suggestions.

Any input is very much appreciated. Adding an image of the model he didn't approve.

musashidan

What is this guy trying to achieve? "Oh look what my new scanner can do...." no mention of all the manual labour that you have done. It seems a bit ridiculous, in honesty.

Although it is a good opportunity for you to polish your workflow. I would go with a manual retop. Shouldn't take more than a good afternoon/evening of your time if you intend it as a baked low-poly.

You can also use polygroups for hard-surface Zremeshing. If you set up PGs the same as you would smoothing groups and enable the 'keep groups' option and adjust the 'smoothgroups' slider you can get results. Or ideally, let ZRM get you some of the way there and finish it by hand.

jfitch

I agree with musashidan...but I suppose it all comes down to what the client wants. What is he unsatisfied with? Level of detail? Just decimate that sucker at a higher density and move on. Feels like you putting in a ton of work to make his "scanner" look good doesn't make any sense, at this point it probably would've been faster to model and texture by hand. Also depends on how much he's paying you, too I suppose. But yeah, do it by hand if you feel like you need to, shouldn't take too long. 

The still shot of that model is looking pretty good to me so... *shrug*

KurtR

Thanks both you, and yeah, that's what restrained me. That If I actually do more work on it, it's not representative of his scanner anymore. And as you said, Musashidan, I did that extra mile already just to polish and enhance my own workflow, but I actually think Ill stop where it's at.

I was just in that place where I needed an outside voice. Much appreciated Musashidan and jfitch.

KurtR

Oh, sorry, jfitch, I forgot to answer you question. He had seen another sketchfab-file that was scanned, and wanted better results than this other model. I actually thought his looked better, but he wasn't totally happy. He have, however, admitted that he knows to little about this, so I am instead pointing him in a few directions to learn a little more about 3D concepts in general. He seems humble enough, actually, as long as I took some time to explain a little about the process.