Should I retopo or re-model this building?

bitinn

Hi guys, I am trying to move from a SketchUp export model into Maya LT / 3D Coat, and clean it up.




The problem, I don't know if it is any good to retopo model like this one, I do want to maintain the right angles and hard edges, but most retopo tools seem to expect a mid/high poly model, instead of a messy low-poly model.

So, should I give up and just re-model?

Prime8

I would remodel it, depending on what you want to achieve, make it modular maybe.
What going on with some of the faces? Are they flipped? Looks a bit strange.
You could try to skip SketchUp next time and model this kind of stuff directly in Maya, might save a bit of time and headache.

bitinn

Prime8 said:

I would remodel it, depending on what you want to achieve, make it modular maybe.
What going on with some of the faces? Are they flipped? Looks a bit strange.
You could try to skip SketchUp next time and model this kind of stuff directly in Maya, might save a bit of time and headache.

I don't think they are flipped? The blue ones are just semi-transparent texture. Though I admit SketchUp exports are usually bad and there isn't much you can do about it, I just make it triangulate all faces and save as dae.

The reason to go after SketchUp is due to its ease of use at conceptual stage, if the retopo path is ok, I would like to give it a go. Otherwise, like you said, I should just model it in Maya.

DeathstrokeFTW

I would remodel this too. And it wont take long to model this.

throttlekitty

With a model this simple, there's no real retopology to be done. It's been a while, but I was pretty sure you can export ngons from sketchup just to save you some trouble of cleaning triangles. Anyway, your options are either: Delete edges on the import, Place down a plane and use edge loops and extrudes to match the windows, or make a modular window and wall section that you can duplicate down the row.

@Prime8 the faces just look strange because of the camera and scene scale, @bitinn will probably want to adjust the near clipping plane on the camera at some point.

bitinn

Yeah I end up re-modeling with modular walls and windows.

@throttlekitty It seems SketchUp export is better when your walls don't have thickness. I have another model that export just fine when I am using ngon (ie. not triangulate), but the one in OP is messy no matter what I do.