Topology tool(s)
polycounter lvl 14
I am giving up on working on one piece at a time for the entire mesh and looking for re-topology tools. I am siding more towards 3d coat, but I honestly think wasting money on the professional edition right now, is kind of pointless because I unwrap UVs in blender.
So I want to know if its worth buying just the educational version of it, until I can afford the pro version. =\
Thanks.
So I want to know if its worth buying just the educational version of it, until I can afford the pro version. =\
Thanks.
Replies
I think I recall seeing some videos for some retopology tools in Blender. I'm not sure how they'd stack up to programs that have a stronger focus in that area, but it may be worth looking into as well.
It has the snapping to object function that allows you to construct a new mesh on top of it.
I just figured tools like Topo gun and 3d coat will deal with less to no lag should I decide to import the entire mesh in it. =\
This tutorial you were talking about, I have watched it many times and yes, blender is great for re-topology. The bad part comes when you are trying to remove the edge loops or individual edges. Since I am still kind of new to blender, I tried merging the verts of one edge to the other, but that takes a while.
So the problems I am having is:
-Cant really import a densed up mesh in to blender and expect it not to lag.
-Cant remove the edges, or use knife tool to split a polygon. =\
Maybe you are right, I should try out the demo version of 3d coat and see if it is worth it. =\
I dont know how tho, like if someone is just looking for a topology tool and not the other stuff because you endup unwrapping in blender and use xnormal to bake the maps anyways. =\
haven't used blender in a long time but i do remember that you can remove whole edge loops, while keeping everything intact.
The reason why it fucked up when removing just edges is that, that would create ngons in most cases.
and for who knows what reason blender devs think ngons are evil and wont support them.
Thanks guys.
That's what Decimation Master is for. Topogun and 3Dcoat both work, but in a very specific scenario. There can be some big advantages to doing retopology in a standard 3D app though:
Say for instance you wanted to create a clean mech model based on a concept sculpt. In that case, Topogun or 3Dcoat would be more trouble than they are worth.
Still, this is why I prefer Wrapit because it fits nicely into 3ds max and my existing workflow; and I can also find a lot of extra uses for the tool for other everyday tasks and problem solving.
Bringing a full sculpt into any program is not a good idea, so either use a low sub-d level, or decimate it in max, maya, blender, or zbrush.
Ya well, that causes face flips, and overlaps since it doesnt create just one plane but 2. Front side and back side so you can measure the thickness out so, even with the 0 thickness you would likely to have face flips, since it works that way in zbrush. When the rigging tool was made, the Pixologic dev team assumed that the mesh would stay in zbrush. They havent touched it after they realized that zbrush would link to many other programs. I dont think they will ever fix it. =\
It took me an hour to learn the 3d coat when bought it since my last post. The major reason I dont want to touch blender for this purpose is that, they dont have reliable split polygon tool.
If you understood the basic concept behind one 3d modeling program, it will take you alot less time to learn a different 3d modeling program. For example:
I started learning 3d modeling in Softimage XSI. When I was good at knowing what to do to create a model, I moved on to Autodesk Maya because many people use it here so it would be easier for them to answer the question should I come across some sort of problem. Took me about 30 minutes to get settled with Autodesk Maya.
Than someone told me that Blender is the way to go because it is much easier than Maya and almost have everything that requires for 3d artist to achieve their goal, when I was planning to buy either XSI or Maya. Blender's interface took me about an hour to understand (30 mins extra because I failed to find out how to split a polygon within blender.)
For 3d coat, it took me about 15-20 minutes approx to understand how it works.
I agree that there are massive advantages to decimate your model and re-topo it in a standard 3d modeling tool, but say, for example, I am a big fan of split polygon tool from Maya and a add edge tool, split polygon tool, and knife tool from XSI. I move on to try out blender's foundation and try to re-topo a mesh in blender, and I get stuck finding out that the Knife tool isnt doing what it suppose to.
Now I can either go back to Maya or XSI or buy a re-topology tool to just get rid of the entire hassle, dont you agree?
EDIT: I'll check out the bsurface. Thanks for the link.
I personally haven't explored much beyond 3dsmax + GMT + WrapIt and I wonder if these are really any faster. I wouldn't mind trying them out but it would take weeks to get familiar with all of them in order to give them each a fair shake.
With WrapIt the gap is almost closed, but still there.
Even if TopoGun and 3D Coat are a little bit better i prefer GMT+Wrapit.
Did you know you can select any edge or ring of edges and use 'subdivide' to split them? This really only works in edge mode, not vert mode, so if you're one of those madmen who only ever use vert-mode (Blender doesn't distinguish between them at a macro-level. If you select the four verts that make up a face, you just selected a face, and extruding will extrude that face) you'll run into a problem there. Like I said, I'm still figuring it out myself (thanks for the tutorial, Ralusek!), but perhaps I can help?
Also, I saw someone was struggling with deleting edges, so here's what I've found: press x, select 'edgeloop'. It will only delete your selected edges, not the entire dgeloop as it seems to suggest. That's untill Bmesh (A new mesh-system that supports ngons, among other changes) arrives, which features the 'dissolve' command, which works as you'd expect it from other software, like Max.
Nitewalkr - Trust what works for you, don't take other people's word for it. It is good to experiment, but don't count out solutions for your lead 3D app. Ideally that's were you should want to Retopo in the first place. Also, ask yourself, "What is the most realistic option in the workplace when I have to convince my employer to provide the tool?" It's a simple but very important question.
MightyPea - I agree. It is indeed adequate to anyone's 3d modeling needs, and I do plan to keep up with that 3d app. The split polygon means, well, splitting one quad in to 2, just one quad, not the entire row or creating extra geometry around the edge that you made. (knife tool does that in blender)
I didnt know you can select a single quad and sub divide it. WOW....It isnt the only problem that forced me to look for third tool that helps me with the re-topology. Its also, if you delete one edge it would delete 2 quads with it. I know its easy to work with it but seriously I wouldnt count on few functions of blender until they fix it and do what they suppose to do.
Crispy4004 - the lead app that I am working is Softimage xsi which is really amazing when it comes to creating edges on the quad by split tool, knife tool and poly curve tool, etc etc. so I think I'll stick with that.
EDIT: Make that; The lead 3d apps that I am using right now are Softimage XSI, Zbrush, and 3d coat, so work through those.
Thanks for help guys.