Help a 3D newbie please!

AkiranYu

Hello! I have some questions about pipelines and processes when it comes to 3D characters. I'm fairly new to this, just started studying with online tutorials - if anyone could give me a hand with this I'd be incredibly grateful!

I made a basemesh inside 3dsmax, then exported to zbrush, and made a high poly with several subtools- now this is what isn't too clear for me... now you have to make the low poly, you gotta reduce the polygon count...but once you've done that to all subtools you have to group them for the uvs right? How do you know what to group? Perhaps the whole process of low poly isn't too clear for me...could anyone give a hand? I really Need it so I can move on. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read. Have a great day! 

Eric Chadwick

This wiki page hasn't been updated in a while, but still has valuable info...
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/ReTopologyModeling

Burpee

Really depend on the resolution of your character, you can group everything if you really have a low budget, or you can have multiple object.

kanga

You make your low poly with as many models as you need. Lets say it would be easier to split your character into two parts: a skin part and a costume part. Merge the high poly subtools int the two groups and export them. Then you would decimate all the subtools (back to 1% of their original rez (or as low as you can go without them colapsing) and merge all the decimated skin parts into one subtool in ZB, and all the costume parts as another subtool. Then GoZ those decimated subtools to Max. Using polydraw under the freeform menu, retopo your imported decimated tools, uv the retopoed models, export and bake you textures.

Eric fed you a good link about the process but there are some good 'Eat3D' Dvds on creating a lowpoly model. You can find them on their site.

Cheerio