Trooper (First Artwork in Portfolio)
Hi everyone!
I'm new in the 3D world and this is my first portfolio character. I would like to know if there are any errors or where I missed something or maybe something should be added? Just some feedback.
And the big question about topology. Some artists use a lot of triangles and poles. As I understand, triangles can be used, but how often and in what situations? Or does it make sense to stick to a perfect square grid? Does this affect, for example, optimization in games or not? Or maybe while you are doing work for the portfolio, you can not pay attention to the grid at all, the main thing is that it should be beautiful. But how then to increase the skill of retopology, because i think it is important or really not so important? And why are some artists using a rather unusual topology in their models? For example: (https://i.imgur.com/XaKqP2Z.png) (https://i.imgur.com/ewTRt8s.png) (https://i.imgur.com/OB5LfeE.png).
Based on outfit of my character from SWTOR and Sev from Republic Commando.
Sculpted in Zbrush, retopo'd, UV'd, rig in Maya, baked and textured entirely in Substance Painter and rendered in Marmoset Toolbag.
Thanks for your time and I'm sorry if I made a mistakes somewhere in the text (non-native English).
Replies
Congratz on finishing your first character.
One thing you could improve on your next model is that the hard surface looks kind of soft and lumpy, it can help to not have a very high polycount in the basemesh for hard surface parts, it's easier too keep straight lines that way. And if you sculpt them from scratch in zbrush using dynamesh it can be good to do a quick retopo on those parts, crease some edges and subdivide to get a cleaner look.
The fingers also look a little small thin and it looks like you painted the upper arm armor on, I would model that instead.
Regarding your topology question, using triangles is perfectly fine, the goal is to have clean efficient topology that deforms well, not to have a fully quaded mesh, it's a common misconception :) . I tend to not put any triangles in characters faces but that's about it.
hope that helps, happy sculpting :)