There is software called “instant meshes” what I use to retopology using quads but I haven’t try this on character animation. It is my primary choise to retopology photogrammetry meshes to desired polygon density.
So my workflow (in photogrammetry sources) is:
-import .obj file to instant meshes
-retopology to quads
-I import both original and retopology version to Blender
-Clear all sharp edges from retopology version
-UV map retopology version
-Duplicate retopology mesh to “cage” mesh for baking, just scale it a bit larger.
-Bake textures to retopology version and also bake normal map from high density mesh low density mesh
This works flawlessly with photogrammetry sources and I can bake some 5 million vertex mesh with 16k textures to 1k vertex mesh with 256x256 texture, or anything between but I haven’t try with characters. Maybe it could work too if mesh is identical both sides so it could work if character is cut to half and process only half of mesh and mirror it.
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No what i mean is that the higher poly(subdevision) is on that face but the lines you see only represents the lower mesh.
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Hi Grunt, thank you for the detailed description.Will make a try with this workflow.
Thank you for giving more details about your approach. I have the actual blend model (not only a picture of it) and it has only the low-poly mesh you see in the picture. Actually this model is textured barely with a diffuse map, meaning no normal or height map was used with it. Thus the HP details were not transfered to it by baked textures either. But nevertheless thank you for your suggestions.
No subdivisions modifier?
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Gamesartist.co.uk has several modeling cases where studio artists tell about their workflow and how to solve specific problems. You can get several insights from it. Also, you’ll check that their low poly version aren’t so low. But normally very small details are kept with a bump or/and a normal map, baked in Substance, Mary or Blender.
Warframe has a Steam Workshop with low poly assets that can be downloaded for creating new in-game assets. You can check how their retain details by rebuilding PBR textures in Blender.
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Yes,you were right indeed.I checked that part of the mesh,and there was an unassigned subd,and it was what did the trick.As it was unassigned,it did not add the excess geometry to the LP wireframe,but gave it a smooth look. Without the subd. the sample mesh actually looked a lot less polished than the raw retopo I fetched up.
Can I ask how did you know, there should be a subd,over the model?
And thank you for revealing the solution. It was there within the sample the whole time,I just did not see it.
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Hi Lucas,I did not know about these sites,I will definitely check them out,what you said sounded awesome.Thank you for the advice
The give away was the fact that the lines in the image had a slight curvature on the corners, without the subdivisions it will be perfect straight lines 90 degrees corners.
see the image:
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Thank you a lot for pointing that out. It is a great deal of help.
