[Blender] I need some 'hard surface' and retop advice please.

oraeles77

its a wheel of a trolly, im not too worried about the forks/bolt holding the wheel for this critique, just the actual wheel.

I made a 48-sided wheel , and also I made a 24 sided wheel as a 'retop' lower poly version, I was originally going to try to retop it using addons in blender, but as that was a bit too tricky for  a generic circle shape, instead I just copied a segment of vertices to the centre, then rotated it on its central pviot point by 15 degrees, and filled the gaps making a similar 24 sided wheel.

curved surfaces and retopolgy or making low poly models is the one thing which confuses as im always worred about getting the correct shape and making sure I dont get any weird artifacts when baking etc.

this particular lp model is 24 sides, but I think I could go as low as 12, is possible and any advice regarding baking the normals  or how you think the distance/bias should be set, as the two different poly wheels.

12 sized version. I also reduced the polygon count on the sides of the wheel. (normal vertex weighted)

oraeles77

UPDATE.

I retopolgised the wheel and the fork things.

if you could look at the images below and give your opinions.

(this project) a friend wants a shopping kart/trolley for a little game they are making in unity, they want it reasonibly high detail, so I decided I would make a higher poly model for close ups and then blockly super low poly models with LOD for further away, thats why I've taken much longer than usual focussing on a wheel, and I can use it as a chance to work on my hardsurface modelling and retop skills (or total lack of.)

The bakes were done with Blender's Smartunwrap tool and baked in Blender, the renders are in Substance Painter, and overall I was impressed with the visual quality, it has captured the detail of the bolt's screw etc.

However when using Retopflow in Blender, I found I had trouble with areas like the bolts and they were left visiblly hovering above the surface of the mesh? is that ok?

also the bolt's screw's retop shape is a volcano shape, while Im sure it would have been better if I did it manually and make a 6/8 sided cylinder on top of a low poly 6 sided bolt shape, which are in contact with the main mesh. (does this make sense?)

finally upclose some of the renders reveal a few artifacts on the edges, but I dont think its a massive issue when its becomes a shame object.

I've added screen shots further down showing areas of my concern.

so.... am I doing OK???

FourtyNights

Why not just modeling the high poly wheel having a little bit more segments (64, for example), and once you've finished with the HP wheel, duplicate it, and optimize it down to a low poly by deleting support loops, some segments and needless polygons on flat surfaces. Simple as that.

You're having an unnecessarily complex worflow for this. In general, you don't retopologize hard surface assets. It's best to create a high poly with a quite good topology which can be duplicated and optimized down to a low poly later.

oraeles77

FourtyNights said:

Why not just modeling the high poly wheel having a little bit more segments (64, for example), and once you've finished with the HP wheel, duplicate it, and optimize it down to a low poly by deleting support loops, some segments and needless polygons on flat surfaces. Simple as that.

You're having an unnecessarily complex worflow for this. In general, you don't retopologize hard surface assets. It's best to create a high poly with a quite good topology which can be duplicated and optimized down to a low poly later.

that is exactly how I redid the wheel to a lower level. I duplicated a line of edges/vertices and once I simplified it enough I rotated it at the correct angle, 15 degrees etc, then filled in the gaps.

"In general, you don't retopologize hard surface assets. It's best to create a high poly with a quite good topology which can be duplicated and optimized down to a low poly later."

yes, and I understand what you mean, and the 'optimized down to a low poly' bit is happening now, so are you saying this isnt the right sort of surface for retopology? and maybe I should shave that for organic surfaces instead?

FourtyNights

@oraeles77

No, you don't just duplicate "a line of edges/vertices" and redo it again, that's a waste of time. You duplicate the whole wheel and optimize it from there, because it already has a topology you need.

Yes, retopology is used for organic things, such as characters.

EDIT: A quick and dirty GIF explaining what I usually do for my high poly models after they're done. I duplicate and make low polies out of them. Took me about less than a minute to get a low poly wheel from a high poly wheel in this case.

oraeles77

FourtyNights said:

@oraeles77

No, you don't just duplicate "a line of edges/vertices" and redo it again, that's a waste of time. You duplicate the whole wheel and optimize it from there, because it already has a topology you need.

Yes, retopology is used for organic things, such as characters.

EDIT: A quick and dirty GIF explaining what I usually do for my high poly models after they're done. I duplicate and make low polies out of them. Took me about less than a minute to get a low poly wheel from a high poly wheel in this case.

hi fortynights, thanks for the gif. yeah, I was pretty much doing the exact same thing, only like I previously wrote, I selected a single line of vertices (with  certain unwanted ones left out, I'd like to  stress) and then rotated/doubled them them making a new wheel, next time I will do the edge loop thing, however its pretty much the same thing, but yours is quicker, its good to know the actual geometry is ok, so for once Im doing something right.

FourtyNights

Not saying that your workflow isn't working, since the end result is same, but it's a bad habit because it's WAY too slow. Especially if you were working in a real game studio environment where you need to be faster and efficient where deadlines are quite tight sometimes.

Well, if you started working the original high poly wheel out of a cylinder primitive, it's 100% guaranteed that the geometry is always correct. If you create a 48-sided cylinder, it's just simpler to delete every other edge loop like in the GIF and get a 24-sided cylinder. If you wish to go even further, delete every other loop from the 24-sided to get a 12-sided. In a matter of few minutes.

oraeles77

FourtyNights said:

Not saying that your workflow isn't working, since the end result is same, but it's a bad habit because it's WAY too slow. Especially if you were working in a real game studio environment where you need to be faster and efficient where deadlines are quite tight sometimes.

Well, if you started working the original high poly wheel out of a cylinder primitive, it's 100% guaranteed that the geometry is always correct. If you create a 48-sided cylinder, it's just simpler to delete every other edge loop like in the GIF and get a 24-sided cylinder. If you wish to go even further, delete every other loop from the 24-sided to get a 12-sided. In a matter of few minutes.

i was wondering about nurb modelling etc and is it possible to create a 'wheel' in blender using somesort of addon, and then decide/apply the number of edges later? does that make sense? I know Rhino 3d does it that sort of way. I think there could be loads of potental for making things that way. but anyway, thanks for the advice.