highres should be no problem... if the geo is subdivided you should unsubdivide them in mud... but mudbox need clean geo... if there are some bad vertices in your mesh thats a problem...
You need to define separate smoothing groups or add more geo to get a smoother transition between the faces. Also check for unwelded vertices or extra faces hiding in there.
You could make a script that does this pretty easily. That is, select a random number of vertices and relocate all of them to be the same distance away from the original center point.
Why are you shifting the geometry down? It doesn´t matter if you merge the vertices at the borders or not. Since you will have a uv split at the border the geometries will be rendered seperate.
And all that in one single layer. So awesome it makes me wanna sit on the corner and cry like a little baby. :/ Edit: AND it even tiles vertically. Fuck this shit.
Also, you should have these edges this way, so short horizontal quads instead of long vertical ones. Long polygons aren't really friendly with the smoothing sometimes
Low poly will always do that. You dont have enough vertices in the area to adapt to the original shape. In this case this wont cause issues with most default settings on bakers.
Even with the straps I don't see how the bags on his quads stay there without sliding down. I'd add a vertical strap that connects to his belt to fix that.
IIRC, it's not only that, triangle stripping is harder to do with these triangle fans, which could make certain vertices have to be read twice, and then there goes your savings of 56 triangles.
Yuuuummm, I can't wait for her to pull that aggressive feeling from the concept. I'm liking #2, it meshes with her vertical feel right now. Awesome Awesome :)