Jump to content
3DCoat Forums

Rodney Brett

Member
  • Posts

    76
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Rodney Brett's Achievements

Neophyte

Neophyte (2/11)

2

Reputation

  1. Cool video from Kunzendorf. Yeah, understanding the form you're trying to retopo helps figure out a logical flow.. Another way of looking at it is to think of it as box modeling in reverse.. If you were building this shape by box modeling, what would the first set of faces look like? With box modeling, you extrude, then pull the points to achieve the shape, with retopo, you already have the shape, but are building a box model cage around it.
  2. Thanks for watching! When Andrew was first starting out these retopo tools, I was one of many artists that were contributing to what I needed in a flexible topology toolset. I basically treat retopology as a "modeler". Meaning that I need the common tools related to modeling.(Split poly, collapse, edge ring split, extrude, etc.). This is why I can't really use Zbrush's retopo toolset because it lacks these tools and forces you lay down topology correct in your first pass(face by face by face). In my 3d modeling class that I teach, one of the exercises I give to the students is to have them cut an arbitrary shape within a grid plane. Then try and clean up and "quad" the mesh so the new edgelooped form conforms to the plane nicely. This is basically how I approach topology. I am not married to the initial edgeflow as I'm laying down faces. The ability to cut the loops where you want and rethink the flow without the fear of not knowing how to clean up the mesh is a crucial skill to learn as a modeler. I lay down poly strips that act at "keyloops" around areas where I need a specific flow. Then I connect them with "fill-loops". Sometimes, I'll put in the "poles"(5 or 3 edge stars) in the areas where I want them, then build around those poles. I try and follow one of the basic principals of art... Build from the outside-in. Build large faces first, then cut them into medium sized, then small. You'll find that the retopology process goes quicker this way than to use the army-art face by face by face by face method.. Hope this helps! and kudos to Andrew for writing, hands down, the best topology tools out there! and believe me, I've tried them all(Topogun, Polyboost, NEX, CySlice, Blender, Silo, etc.)
  3. I recorded a recent timelapse of a head retopology session I did in 3d-coat. It might give people insight to my workflow. Cheers, -Rodney
  4. Here's the final retopo video.. http://www.vimeo.com/11273828
  5. Interesting workflow, artman. This pretty much almost emulates "edge modeling", however, for my point modeling needs, I'm more of a box modeler. I'm going to try out your method and see how it goes. Thanks!
  6. I was curious as to how easy it would be for Andrew to create a basic polygon modeler within 3d-coat. I feel like some of the toolset is already in place in the retopology section. Maybe create another UI tab called "Modeler", and simply create the basic set of tools like, extrude, append, cut, etc. Even some primitives. I really love the way 3d-coat does it's "split poly". It functions very nicely. Maybe take a look at SILO as a starting point. Still one of the best poly modeling apps out there, even though development's been dead recently. What do you guys think? This would make 3d-Coat the ultimate program for me. I'm sure this has already been brought up, but I couldn't find a post on it.
  7. Hi, there. Thought I'd share a few videos I have on vimeo showing retopology steps in 3d-Coat with a quad production model in mind. I was documenting this for my students. So far, I've uploaded 2 videos, but there is more to come. I plan on using 3d-coat for the texturing phase and various map bakes as well. My goal for this series is to document the entire creature pipeline that we teach. Thanks for looking! -Rodney
  8. Hi. I was just discussing with one of my students about a recent video I created showing retopo tools in 3d-coat and he said "wouldn't that be really great to do that on an iPad with your fingers" and it got me thinking how doable would it be to port over even a scaled down version of 3d-coat for iPad. Even the retopo tools would sell me. What do you think? Rodney Brett www.vimeo.com/RodneyBrett
  9. Thanks, guys. It saves me some time, just want to work out more of my shapes before doing final topology.
  10. I remember using a rapid-retopology feature that you implemented in 3d-coat a while back in beta form, but I can't seem to find this function in the 3.0 release. What was it called? It basically just generated faces instantly across the whole reference mesh. Not for the purpose of animation, but just to continue sculpting in Zbrush. Also, was this function available in 2.11? Thanks, -Rod
  11. Add points/faces is a very important tool for me, even though it's five clicks because I don't approach retopo by laying down "actual size" final faces, but rather, I build very large base faces with good faceloop flow, then use split poly functions to add edgeloops within those larger faces. You will find that retopology not only goes faster with this method, but your final retopo results are more organized, controlled and less chaotic. The problem with tools like Topogun and Zbrush is that there are no poly modeling tools, which still plays a huge role for me when building final animation meshes. They force you to work in a very tedious poly by poly fashion, forcing you to lay down smaller final rez faces. -Rodney www.youtube.com/RodneyBrett
  12. I'm looking forward to a new UI. Although I'm used to the interface now, many of my friends are turned off to the program because of how "Windows" it looks. Some things are a bit scattered as well.
  13. Yes, but keep in mind in 2004, people were committed to just Maya/Lightwave, etc. for all organic modeling and they didn't even know life could be easier with Zbrush Even in 2005-6, I was experimenting myself with Silo's topology brush and I remember a colleague of mine watch me "draw" topology over a dense sculpted mesh and he laughed and said that it wasn't "real" modeling and that a studio would never implement such a pipeline. LOL. On the topic of painting low poly, the ability to have complete control over vertex colors is a must have. Also, the ability to limit your color pallet as well.
  14. I used to approach retopology the slow way. It was because before I was using Zbrush and retopo goes very slow because you cannot build large polygons on the surface, forcing you to use a poly by poly method. It goes by much faster if you treat it as if you were box modeling with a 3d reference image. Build large polys that flow along the masses, then subdivide afterwards or manually add edgeloops later. Not to say that I am not guilty of doing painful small poly by poly method myself. some tighter areas of detail are unavoidable. What's great about 3d-coat is the powerful retopo toolset. It has the best "smooth" brush while conforming to surface than any other program I've used. Before I would use Maya's "relax" brush, but I would always need to shrinkwrap the verts back to the surface as they would offset quite a bit. Here's some shots of my latest retopo job using 3d-coat. It's a hyper-real production style mesh, hence the density. I used the draw strokes a lot. Took me about half the time then using NEX tools. the 3rd and 4rd shot is the reprojection in Zbrush. Sorry for getting off topic..
×
×
  • Create New...