polyRetopo the secret maya node

oglu

There is a non documented maya node in 2018 which is somehow "interesting".
Just select an object and type the mel command "polyRetopo;" todo some magic.
This automatic retopo could in combo with booleans lead to some new workflows.

Looks like it does only work on Windows. 

pasha_sevez

Man, thanks for pointing out, this is a super helpful discovery! In turn, I can add that Maya also has a hidden remeshing mode, which turns any mesh into a uniformly tessellated triangular mesh - kinda like Sculptris Pro in ZBrush. Just select a mesh and execute this python code:

<p>import maya.cmds as mc</p><p><br></p><p>mc.polyRemesh( tsb=0, smt=50, rdt=50, ipt=2, rft=0.15 )</p>

Burpee

That's interesting indeed ! I gave him a tried, it's bascially non usable on big mesh, like a full body.
Otherwise on low rez mesh it's pretty kewl 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMN7phIXuW8&feature=youtu.be

Thanks ! 

oglu

I tried it on a decimated creature and it did a decent job.
Sometimes its doing really good retopo on hardsurface meshes.
Have todo more tests.

throttlekitty

Whoa, great find! I'll have to play with this more, but I can see some good uses for it already.

@pasha_sevez is that the same remesher that gets used in particle conversion?

pasha_sevez

@throttlekitty I’m not sure to be honest. But I couldn’t find any mention about it in official docs.

oglu

A tip from Klaudio Ladavac is to use the Remesh before Retopo.
That does work fine.

Both nodes does preserve hard edges!

pasha_sevez

Thanks for a useful advice I'm just curious, why remeshing before retopo is important? Does it somehow affect the retopo procedure?

oglu

looks like you get a cleaner mesh. If you go straight to the retopo you will see the lowpoly geo in the final.
a six edge cylinder will stay a six edge cylinder even if the high would have more that six sides.

Klaudio2U

The are two key reasons for using polyRemesh before.
1. The polyRetopo will generate a bit cleaner geo if previous topology has uniform topology all over insted of huge ngons.
2. polyRemesh key feature "Smooth Strength" which will smooth out low poly look on curved surfaces. Important is to balance between using Smooth Strength and amonut of topology. For example on image above the topology is way to dense so it should have been way less and with that Smooth Strength works better too....basically play around with those until you get smooth enough result before going to polyRetopo.

To keep in mind is that both polyRemesh and polyRetopo are aware of hard edges and will preserve them so be sure to check those after using booleans.

pasha_sevez

@Klaudio2U Thanks for sharing and clarification! Now it makes sense much better This is an interesting workflow, have to try it for sure. This thing is even more important then various bevel and Boolean workflows, because it gives you a clean topology almost instantly and for free, and you don’t have to use ZRemesher or side-party scripts / plugins.

Burpee

Thanks @Klaudio2U!
It's actually better than zremesher for preserving hard edge, even if you can do some trick with polyground I feel it's still " cleaner " than zremesher, the only bad part is that it just take forever on dense mesh  

oglu

Thats not that bad. It just means you have to drink 12 coffee instad of 5.

throttlekitty

So far I haven't had a whole lot of luck using this on anything remotely close to a complex mesh. The nice thing is that when it fails, it just doesn't do anything instead of destroying the mesh, albeit it takes some serious time for it to decide to fail. So far I've been trying to clean up some stuff we bought, some destroyed building assets with unfortunate triangulation, another looks like a decimated 3d scan of a vehicle. Are you guys doing more regular-shaped objects like hard surface boxy forms?

I asked the guy that runs Oh My Maya a bit about it, he said they didn't advertise it since it isn't production ready yet. I think it's cool of them to throw it out there anyway.

Maxime33

Hi,

I'm the developer of ZRemesher and I'm currently making an auto-retopo plugin for Maya. (my plugin will also preserve HardEdges).

I'm looking for few beta-testers.

Let me know if you are interested !

eltarbos

Hi maxime,

I'm interested. I'm doing mainly hard surface stuff.

If your plug-in can handle this type of geometry, I'd be glad to give it a try.

pasha_sevez

I'm in.

Burpee

Maxime33 said:

Hi,

I'm the developer of ZRemesher and I'm currently making an auto-retopo plugin for Maya. (my plugin will also preserve HardEdges).

I'm looking for few beta-testers.

Let me know if you are interested !

I'm in! 

onionhead_o

Im in as well. been looking for an semi auto way to retopo hard surface quickly.

pOgOstyle

I'm in. Have much usecases to test this atm.

Maxime33

Hi,

Thanks for your interest in my plugin.

I will send you the beta ASAP (in few days...).

Meanwhile, please send me a message (via polycount) with:

- your email so that I can create an account/license for testing.

- Are you on Windows or Mac?

- In few words, on what type of mesh do you need retopo ? (Mecha, Orga, CAD, scan....)

Maxime33

onionhead_o and pOgOstyle : I will need your email to be able to create license key to test my plugin.

Maxime33

FYI, I just sent the plugin by email to all of you.

Woeful

Maxime33 said:

FYI, I just sent the plugin by email to all of you.

Am I too late to get in on this? I'd love to try it out!

Onnimra

Maxime33 said:

Hi,

I'm the developer of ZRemesher and I'm currently making an auto-retopo plugin for Maya. (my plugin will also preserve HardEdges).

I'm looking for few beta-testers.

Let me know if you are interested !

Can I join?

onionhead_o

I sent a private message to you maxime33

oglu

Thanks for the invite Maxime33 your plugin does work really great. Its much faster and cleaner than the maya one.
The only thing im missing is symmetry. Looks like the Symmetry option does nothing?

oglu

A good overview video about the maya workflow.
https://youtu.be/sRkNIUBmLS4

onionhead_o

Maxime33: plugin handles seems to handle the complex geo quite well. Doing some more test with using materials to set the groups.

something to watch out for is that running plugin initially will overwrite existing custom shelf if custom shelf is not named.

Suggestions:

-option to keep original mesh.

- it would be great to add the vertex paint tool with the colors set up already to paint so a button for Cyan - Big Quads and button for Red - Small quads

onionhead_o

After doing more test Material seems to work better for holding hard edges. Also tried the vertex paint method. Seems to not work so well for hardsurface. might fair better for organic stuff

thePolynormial

Hey there, any chance I can still get in on the beta? Thanks

mktacuara

Hi, This plug in look really cool, Can I get on the beta by any change? Thanks

oglu

What you see in this thread isnt a plugin. Its standard maya. 

Polynaught

Nice find. Just tried it with Maya 2018.

Do you know the minimum version of Maya for this command?

thePolynormial

oglu said:

What you see in this thread isnt a plugin. Its standard maya. 

And some people don't have access to this feature, hence why they're asking to beta / try out Maxime33's plug-in.

Bumblebee

please tell me max has this too...

noizekrafft

if someone needs, i create panel for this commands (feel free to feedback)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=14hvRCuvF_JJtV5ivlg0VlbQNqhllXbnw

Maxime33

Hi,

I don't want to spoil this thread which is about Maya's polyRetopo feature (standard in Maya).

So I created a new thread/topic for my QuadRemesher plugin : https://polycount.com/discussion/208030/quadremesher-new-auto-retopo-plugin-for-maya-3dsmax

NB: For those who asked, I'm doing QuadRemesher for other DCC apps as well (3DSMax, modo, rhino ....)

So, let's continue discussion about QuadRemesher on the dedicated topic and leave this topic for polyRetopo.

@onionhead_o : thanks for your feedback!

@oglu : for symmetry, you need to set Maya's symmetry options as well: Object X|Y|Z or World X|Y|Z

@Woeful and @Kimahiri: Yes! I sent you a message...

victoraguiar

Hi guys!
I tried this method with a mesh that i exported from inventor but no luck so far. I pasted into max  to transform it on poly, and, as expected, I got a bunch of weird triangles and ngons. Sent to maya but couldnt fix it

Does anyone has any suggestions?

Sam316007

Maxime33 said:

Hi,

I'm the developer of ZRemesher and I'm currently making an auto-retopo plugin for Maya. (my plugin will also preserve HardEdges).

I'm looking for few beta-testers.

Let me know if you are interested !

Hii.... Is it too late to join the beta testing party?

mveb1

Hi,
polyRetopo does not always work in maya 2018.
but this is a very interesting working method

oglu

If the nodes does not work please post the object here.
Have in mind it does only work with single polyshells.