quick questions about retopology and pipeline -Zbrush or Max

#1

So basically I am creating an angel with her clothing blowing in the wind. This peice will only be used for turntable purposes only and still images. I want to show the wireframe in my demo reel to. This will not be animated.

I finished the high poly sculpt in Z brush and now I would like to know the process on retopologizing .

This is what I think I should do:

[ul]
[li]reduce the poly count in zbrush first using the QRemesher,[/li][li]export into max[/li][li]retopo using the retopo tools[/li][li]unwrap[/li][li]texture ( subsurface scattering )[/li][li]add hair using Hairfarm[/li][li]light[/li][li]render[/li][li]post production[/li][/ul]

Or should I just do all my retopologizing in zbrush and generate the maps (displacement, normal, specular) then send over to max for texturing ?

I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

#2

Why do you want to retopo if you don’t need a lowpoly at all? You can just unwrap and texture everything in ZBrush. You usually only retopo highpolys if you intend to make a game mesh out of it or are forced to load it into another app that can’t handle millions of polygons. Seeing what you want to do though, you can do all this in ZBrush. :thumbsup:

#3

is their anybody out there that could give some quick advice?

#4

Thank for the reply tilanus.

Shouldn’t I retopo if I want to show wireframes in my portfolio/reel? If I dont retopo then it will look extremely dense with wireframes ?

appreciate the help.

#5

Well, usually you only want to show the wireframe if you want to point out how good your lowpoly works along with the bake from your highpoly.

There’s no good point in solely presenting the wireframe of a highpoly. What would you even want to express with it?

#6

I was thinking that I should have wireframes for high poly models to show proper edge loops and clean geometry. I guess that since I am aiming more towards the film industry, showing wireframes doesn’t really matter to much since its all high poly?? I know that If I was going for a gaming portfolio then wireframes are very important.

I come from a gaming background in school but I decided gaming wasn’t really my thing and chose to work in the film industry so I am trying to get familiar with the pipeline especially in terms of what to show in a portfolio/reel

#7

should i unwrap in zbrush or should i export the highpoly to max and unwrap that. I want to use vray for rendering so I will export the model to 3dsmax after I lower the poly count using decimation master in zbursh. Is this the way to go? sorry for my noob questions.

#8

Retopologize in whatever app you feel is best, whether that’s Zbrush or Max is up to you. Then once you’ve got a decent base mesh, you can then bring that back into Zbrush and extract displacement from it.

It is a good idea to retopogize the hires sculpt to show you can produce decent geometry for deformation and rendering purposes in your demo reel.

#9

I second Earlyworms opinion. Riggers still need good topology to get proper deformations when you’re dealing with higher res assets as well.

Whichever software you’re most comfortable in I would stick with.

Personally, I usually use decimation master on my high res sculpt. Export that as an OBJ and import it into max to use the retopology tools to generate the mesh that will be rigged.
Once I’m finished with that, I unwrap in Max, then send the new mesh back to ZBrush to bake my maps.

#10

thanks guys for your replies. the pipeline makes perfect sense. one thing though…when i retopo in max and bring the new retopo mesh into zbrush, how would i make the maps if the detail isn’t on that mesh??wouldn’t I extract the maps from the high detail mesh first and then add it to the new retopo mesh??

Sorry for the quesitons, are their any tutorials to show me what exactly you mean?

#11

You need to import your new clean mesh into your ZBrush scene with the sculpt in it. Divide your mesh you imported in a few times, and use the project all feature in the subtools palette. This will transfer all the details of your sculpt onto your new mesh. You can then bake your maps from there.

#12

Ohh I see, that makes sense. I am going to research tutorials on that. Thank you nmcelmury for your help and everyone else! much appreciated.:beer:

#13

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