CGTalk - What's the best way to build a low poly character stand-in?

View Full Version : What's the best way to build a low poly character stand-in?

stzaske

02-09-2003, 09:16 AM

I have a high poly count character, and ready to start animating. I'd like to have a low poly version of my character, to speed playback and such. What is the best way to accomplish this? Do I bind two different skins to the same skeleton? I suspect I take one, say the lower poly version, and paint weights. Once it's okay, then export the painted weights and then import them to the high res skin. Is this correct? Or should I just try to use Smooth-Proxy?

I guess my problem is, some of my shapes are already high-poly, with no low-poly version, so I'm not sure how to return to a lower poly version (reduce never seems to work).

I've also heard about the MEL script "Connect-Poly" or something like that. I'm not sure if people still use it, or if I even have the choice, since I haven't used it to build my character up to this point.

Your help is appreciated,

-=STZ=-

JoeSchmo

02-09-2003, 02:17 PM

Heres how I do it. I found it works really good.
while I'm modeling, ( starting low and adding polys )
when I get to a medium res version, I do the uv unwrap, stitching etc. Then I make a duplicate of it, put it on a different layer, use that to make a high res version. usually with polygon>smooth,
Model any fine details/ tweaks. Do the texturing, build the skeleton and IKs setup , bind the skin and paint the weights,etc.
after all thats done when I'm ready to animate, I'll use the med res to create a real time setup, by cutting it up where the joints
are and PARENTING the pieces to the bones. Then I DETACH
the high res skin ( with keep history on to save the skin weights ),
and hide the high res layer. I use the med res PARENTED version to set all the keys on the joints, IK's. I can scrub back and forth
faster than real-time, get the animation best I can. Then go to frame -10 go to the bind pose and rebind the high res skin, do some playblasts and tweaks.
The reason it is fast is 'cause the processor does'nt have to calculate all the skin clusters deforming. If you just HIDE the high res and dont detach it, your just saving display performance
It will still have to calculate the skin deformations even though
they're hidden.
If you have a good enough vid card, ( I do ) you can even use a copy of the high res version cut up and PARENTED and scrub real time.
Joe

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