So this is pretty odd. I’ve been looking for a simplified full body male retopology tutorials, on both, YT and Vimeo. But I couldn’t find one that has a step by step approach.
I came across a handful of good instructors, but their approach is rather more of a trial and error while explaining the reasoning behind their topology decisions, which is nice, but still not very dummy-friendly.
Dikko and Danny Mac have fantastic tutorials on head retopology. And they keep it very simple by starting off with big loops for the articulated parts, and then adding resolution as they go along. Very simple and easy to follow along.
Can you guys please contribute to this thread by sharing your approach on how you go about retopologizing a sculpted male body (muscular or non-muscular) in the same fashion?
Hey man check out sir pink beard’s tutorial series on YouTube. He did like a 30 video series on his complete workflow from modeling a 3d male character from scratch to refining it through sculpting and retopology. As someone who was struggling with retopology at the time, I found it extremely helpful.
Appreciate your post. But in this series he retopologizes the head and hands only. He then sculpts and retopo the clothes. I’m facing difficulties trying to figure out the best strategy to retopo muscular bodies. Like I can’t seem to understand the best loop topology for the biceps, chest, deltoids, abs… Etc, and how they all eventually connect when you attach the head and the hands. If you are doing this for animation, it ain’t easy, at least to me.
I am not a retopology expert, but I have studied it a bit. My understanding has always been that specific muscle groups are generally avoided unless you’re doing a rather dense retopology model. Where you place your edge loops is more of an animation concern (e.g. knees, elbows). I can definitely understand your confusion, I’ve been there on many issues.
Have you checked out the Flipped Normals videos? Try searching for them on Youtube, I believe they have good advice. Here’s one of their videos, and they do use Blender for it.
Yeah I saw this vid. I like their approach, it’s similar to that of Danny Mac and Dikko. But again, they went over the concept briefly, and did not do a full-on retopology on the entire body. I’m on the fence thinking about buying their retopo course, but I’m not happy with the way they approach the deltoid part, seemed too general. It’s amazing how this topic is very overlooked, yet very essential for production.
There’s a also workbook called ‘Pushing Points Topology’ that is quite useful. I believe its available in both physical and PDF format. I’m not sure if that helps you, but its well presented.
That’s an awesome book. I got it yesterday. Doesn’t address the area I’m talking about, but it has a bunch of exercises to master dealing with polygons to achieve optimal topology in general.
Hi there, I’m glad you found some benefit to my suggestion. Regarding edge loops around muscle groups and such, again I would probably avoid that, but also keep an eye out for more experienced advice than what I can offer. The vast majority of detail (e.g. muscles) is going to be contained in your normal maps, so unless you’re doing relatively high-poly animation, you don’t need to worry about muscle definition with your geometry.
