Retopologizing a character, and how I SHOULD be doing it?

Lexinator117

I'm making a model of an Elite from Halo, and it needs Retopo now. I manually retopo a LOT, but its still a pain for me. I'm asking your guys' input on how you might go about it consistently and efficiently.
The model has many parts, and will still have up to ~40k of detail in the low poly. Many parts are overlapping/intersecting/obscuring other parts. What I was thinking was taking it into 3Dcoat as one obj, with the parts all spread out. Like armor, and undersuit, and skin components all 'standing' side by side. Is there a better approach? In any way?

Retopo always ends up with me clicking about 100,000,000 times and running into just as many technical bugs and mishaps and frankly i always feel like I am going about it the wrong way. Even if you all have no specific advice to improve what I am doing, if you could tell me how you, or some of the pros might go about a model like this, that would be wonderful.

thanks in advance for any help!

Alex_J

I do my retopo in maya, so the tools I mention may be specific to that program.

When I have to retopo complex curved shapes like that, I start by filling in the edges with as much resolution as they need for the silhouette. Then the flat chunks in between you can just fill hole, select all faces, and triangulate or convert n-sided faces to quad.If they aren't completely flat you may need to fill in manually, but should be big quads so shouldn't be too much work.

I try to structure my work like an assembly line. If you can get your hand movements into a rhythm, that helps a lot. So I batch together my work like that. Kind of hard to explain, easier to show.

So for the frilly edges, I start by filling in the frills with a single quad. Just go down the line. Next, I add a centered edge in the middle of each one. Go down the line. Next, I drag the vert of that new edge to its apex. Go down the line. If I did each little frill by itself, veeeery tiresome. Give you carpal tunnel. But by batching similar movements together it becomes easier and you get into this rhythm thaht maeks the work very enjoyable. I think so anyway. I retopo'd this crown many times as the design changed, but by the end I was able to do this in about an hour. Because I did it all manually, I was able to have single contiguous loops to section off my UV shells. Makes that part a breeze.

Couple things that help is having all common tools tied to ergonomic hotkeys. Ideally you can work as fast as you can think. No reaching with hands or eyes, everything you need is second nature and doesn't tak emore than split second to access. For me, maya marking menus are perfect for that. I got all marking menus tied to mouse buttons, and stuff like target weld, multicut, quad draw, combine, separate, component conversions, and so on are all accessed without having to reach with my left hand at all.

Left thumb stays on alt/space bar, and all keys that can be reached without stretching the left hand too far from there have a primary and alternate hotkey. Alt+w, e, r, 1, 2, 3, a, s, d, etc etc. I try to mimic this same setup in other programs as close as possible. This lessens the mental shift you got to make when popping to and from programs which minimizes fatigue, errors, and boost productivity.

One thing i see some people doing is they use the quad draw tool, and that's it. That's the dedicated retopo tool, so they figure just use it and nothing else. But if you got your hotkeys set up for quick access to all your common tools, then you don't get stuck with the limitations of one tool. Quad draw is great for quickly laying out your main forms, but it sucks in tiny little crevices. For that, its good to switch back to your standard transform tools, sometimes pop into wireframe mode, maybe isolate view an area, turn off the live surface for a bit... point is, don't just use the tools directly for their intended purpose. Always be on the lookout to learn a new tool cause theey all got situations they can help with.

But, for work like this I would work low-to-high in the first place, so much of the game model is built up front.

Looking at your model, I'd expect to be able to retopo it in about 6-8 hours for a clean, optimized result. Maybe less because it does look symmetrical. I tend to do my UV's at the same time as retopo. If you can duplicate anything  for reuse elsewhere it makes sense to UV it first. Saves time. 

Lexinator117

Thanks for your input Alex. I have never really delved into custom hotkeys before, and youre right that that may save me some serious headache. Especially between programs. I will be sure to keep silhouettes in mind as well.

I have, and enjoy working low-high as well, but i often find i have more difficulty executing on creative ideas and forms when box modelling, as apposed to sculpting. Unfortunately, High-low comes with this downside, that I am still trying to master. Not necessarily to out myself as a slow retopo-er, but in my experience, my sculpts take me 8 solid hours on a good day. I would expect myself to take WAY longer on this one.

I too would be curious to know what one of those 3D gods who make outrageously complicated models on the regular thinks about during their approach to retopo. I know there is no way they struggle like i do, but maybe its only a matter of persistence and experience (and little things like the hotkeys)