Should I change my approach to retopoing this sci fi suit?

Travis C

... before it is too late?

So I'm having a hard time using as little geo as possible because many parts of her suit just sticks out, especially the tube things on her neck among other things. Since I want it to be animated and in UE4, I'm not sure if what I currently have is too high poly and if it the topology has problems.

Does anyone have any suggestions, or should I just keep going this way? 

On the 3rd image, there's 3 turntables of the model in zbrush pre-render.

musashidan

This might be a VFX retop job but unnecessary in your case. The model is basically all carved lines which don't affect silhouette and will be picked up in the NM. For the major form/silhouette changes definitely keep going as you are, the rest can be baked.

And even if you stuck to your current process there is so much that can be optimised by way a terminating quads to tris.

Scruples

You're able to get away with quite a bit regarding the silhouette sometimes. In your case there isn't much disrupting the silhouette making it harder to hide imperfections, but I don't think you need to include all of those lines in your retopology. Shoulders, neckline, head elbows ribcage should be most of it, the rest can be generic quads.

A more important note, the shapes you are retopologising can still be used to clean up the blobbi-ness of the original sculpt, this is a step in a few modellers workflow and it allows for everything to be super clean as it is currently I think it's really hurting your model.


(model from Vanquish for the curious)

I'm going to refer to our own @musashidan's excellent tutorial on hard surface retopo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6UPK-FXROE

Travis C

wow thank you guys,  i'm gonna simplify it. im just unsure if it will deform properly if i use too many tris  in areas where the concentric rings are supposed to be, such as the joints, limbs, and neck 

musashidan

It's all going to be tris in the end, my friend. Strategically place tris at joints can actually be the best option sometimes.
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