First retopology, a lot of questions - Topogun

Alecc

Hey all !

I'm beginner in real time 3d / low poly baking, and I've a lot of question about it.
First, my model :

 

So ok, cool, it's full zbrush, 80 000 000 poly. I need to retopo it.

Question : It's available process to decimate my model ? If I bake, it's to get back full details no ? if I decimate, i'll probably loose a lot of detail ( espacially very small details, like fabric pattern on clothes )

Second, Topogun : 
I've a lot of diffucults to retopo the smallest part, like this zip.


Here, i can't respect the hole, it's to small to retopo it.

Question : How handle the smallest parts ?

Same question about this thing : 

I tried to use Tubes Feature, or Draw, without success. And with the clothes, it's very complicated to turn around the rope.

And finally, I've difficult with the fineliest part like the tshirt : 


Thickness is veryyyy small, and it's impossible to add a shell !

Do you have an idea about this issues ? do you have any tips to do this ? 

Thanks, and by all

pior

You simply just learned an important lesson : from now on you will have to get into the habit of thinking and working in a non-linear way.

That is to say : always keeping in mind the final lowpoly while working on the high ; being aware that some parts may have to be kept separated from others for an easier retopo pass ; and not necessarily doing the retopo pass on the model as a whole, but rather bit by bit.

Also not everything needs to be built in Topogun. You will need to centralize your final asset in a "hub" app anyways (Max/Maya/Blender/Modo) and a lot of the polygon work can be dealt with there.

Regarding details like the zipper : this is a good example of a part that may seem fast to build with Zbrush tools but at the end of the day having to recreate it in retopo just adds up time. Whereas had it been built as a polygonal model from the get go you would have a lowpoly ready "for free". It may be less fun and take a little longer than using clip brushes and dynamesh, but saves the frustration of having to later rebuild a somewhat tedious piece.

In short : your problem is not a retopo problem, but rather a planning issue, which probably comes from too strong a focus on the Zbrush/sculpting side of things. It's all fixable, it will just take some time to retrofit/reverse engineer the model into something that can be easily retopoed and baked. Lesson learned ! Your next model will be faster

Alecc

Thank you very much, it's very interessant answer. 
I understand the "non linear" workflow, and i'll use it on next model !

Thank again