proflooney

I get a crash when I tried autoretopo on one of my low poly characters. here is the crash report Joe

because I have been busy IRL and just getting a chance to sit down and catch up on the forums. got a new grandbaby I been having to babysit while my son is overseas in the military. hes 3 months old and demands a lot of attention ))) Joe PS and spoiling lol

man I wished I had that right now. I have a semi low poly female needs retopoed to clean it up cant wait for that thing the results look great. are you able to adjust the polycount as you want? Joe

I agree solidworks produces some really crappy topology otherwise I would be using it to make some cool stuff as im an expert in that program from using it for years. thanks for the tip on layers. I didnt know i had to make my topology on a layer to use it by itself I thought after I was done retopoing i could just delete the model I used as a frame for retopoing. Joe

i agree something like 3d cad program like solidworks which I use it would take 2 secs. but couldnt you just use the feature where you just draw some straight lines hit enter and you have the surfaces all coverd then just manually do the holes? i mean it really shouldnt take much to do something as simple as that flange?. the only thing i am having probs with understanding this retopo stuff is after you get it all drawn out how do you get rid of the object you used as a base so you can save the new topology out. Joe

I was wondering if it would be too hard to have the prog take the imported object and look at the current polys in it and then do like an equalize type thing by taking the average size of a poly then equalize all polys so they are the same size. that would make retopo a lot easier with the evenly drawn polys give you a nice guide for retopo. cause then you could cover say 4 of your poly guides with 1 poly etc. I dont know how hard that would be to do but it would be a nice feature. or even a flow type thing where it goes through the polys and smooths them out auto lining them up into an even smooth flow. Joe PS sorry if it sounds like ranting but couldnt figure out how to explain what I was thinking.

well i wished could get it lower poly without losing what I have but after 4 days I am going with what I have. I need to add head and wings but right now its at abt 4500 polys.

yup im grateful for the advice. however i spent a lot of time last night trying to do the described method on the tail last night of an adjusted remodeled body. and after 2 hrs just trying to get it right I gave up lol. the tail isn't perfectly smooth and has some concave areas and so I couldnt get it to work right without adding a bunch of extra stuff then couldnt get anything straight. I think most of it is I just need practice more than anything. also I only been doing 3D modeling for 3 weeks now so havent gotten the feel of things yet. I need to try again today to retopo it as my first try the other day i accidentally wrote over. the big deal for me is the to be sure I have good starting shape on the feet once it is retopoed. they have to have good starting definition of the 3 toes and right now they are really poly heavy. Joe

ok thats what I was wanting to do is to create edgeloops bringing them together but the only edgeloops I saw in the retopo menu was under UV so I didnt think it was what I wanted. it would work great for the tail and the belly area thanks I will try that. joe

thanks. I had already had the base i wanted and this was subdivision 2 in zbrush and seemed nice poly count at the time so I kept it. I will probably eventually make a real low poly so I have a base mesh to work with for other dragons I may want to make. I am just trying to figure this out so thats why I kept them fairly medium sized and 1 at a time. I am getting more comfortable with the process so will try the drawing the line stuff on my next model. Joe

well i am getting my dragons body going. I wished I could figure out an easier faster way of doing it but the only one that seems to be working out for me is 1 poly at a time. as you can see I still have to figure the belly out which is where it was really messed up before and why I am retopoing it. its pretty slow been 2 days now and am on my 3rd. hope to finish tonight. theres abt 26k polys in the body and tail area so half of that by hand 1 at a time is some slow going lol. plus the fact i am trying to keep a nice smooth flow going. Joe

Sorry didnt get back sooner had stuff come up. I was watching the tutorials and reading the helps. the problem I am having is that being so new to 3D some of it doesnt make sense to me and looking at a few of the tutorials the polys most are producing are not very eqal to the others some are large some small etc. I am trying to figure out a way to do a nice even topology where all the quads are pretty uniform. I am still having some trouble getting quads to show up but in all honesty I havent had a chance to try again in the last couple days. I will try again this afternoon see if I can come up with something. Joe PS i dont worry abt diplomacy I am 48 yrs old and rarely in face to face here sugar coat things so I have thick skin and just take things as constructive criticism. also I know there are a lot of ppl out there that dont even try to figure things out themselves before screaming for help. thats one thing I dont do I do a lot of studying and trying first. I just happen to be an old fart getting into this newfangled stuff and finding myself sinking fast. ))

Now that the thread has been posted, here is the models I am working with. also I am attaching the look I am wanting to achieve with these models when finished. this is why I am wanting to retopo to a lower res to make it easier to work with and also on how to use the program to create clothes and gear for them Joe

Hi guys I am looking for a mentor to help me get going with this program. I have a couple models that I would like to retopo to a lower poly count but also have a nice flowing topo. I have watched several tutorials but for some reason I cant even come close to getting anything going for some reason. Now I am used to doing 3D cad work and have only been messing with 3D Modeling for a couple weeks. I have never gotten past a basic mesh. I been wanting to add clothes and texture etc but have had a hard time trying to find a mentor to help and most forums ppl stay quiet. I am an extremely fast learner if I have someone I can coprrespond with when I have a question and can look over my project to see what might be causeing my probs. I will post what I have so far as soon as I take a couple screenshots. Like i said right now I just want to get to a nice low poly. currently I am at abt 76k polys and would like to cut it down as much as possible. Thanks Joe