Klane

Hi, Your rite, I have a mesh that's working but I still need to sculpt a bit too. The ability to uprez or downrez an area within 3dc would be great. As it is, I'm uprezzing the parts I need more fidelity in from LW. It works, but bouncing back and forth between lw and 3dc is a bit of a hassle. What I'm doing is adding detail to a pre-existing terrain that's based off a real world elevation map and a hi-def photo. I need to be able to see the image part of the terrain while I sculpt, paint or displace. What I was hoping I could do was select the spots I wanted to add detail to, and add subdivisions to those specific areas within 3dc. At the same time, the idea of doing a retopo is really appealing to, because of the control over the mesh it gives you. But that approach wont work for me if I lose my pre-existing UV to paint and sculpt on top of. The same is true with converting to a voxel or importing for ptex. I need to retain that original image map and as yet I haven't seen any way to keep the UV in either ptex or voxel mode. I'm starting to get some results I really like though. Just cant help but wonder if I'm coming at this from the best angle.

I see ... thank you both. Yeah, I ended up subdividing the area I needed more detail in, in Lightwave. I know I am probably doing things a little ass backwards and should be using the retopo tools, but I don't know how to get a pre-existing UV onto a retopo object. I went through all the retopo video's but don't remember seeing anything about transferring a UV. Any suggestions? Thanks again. Klnae

In Microvertex paint, can you subdivide selected polygons? It looks as if this should be easily done, but I can't find the option. Thanks. Klane

Hi, Before I ask my question, just want to say how much I'm enjoying this software. I'm really loving it! On to the question. I'm building some terrains based on high rez images and elevation data. I have geometry coming out of Light Wave that is displaced with the photo applied as a UV. Now I'm trying to decide on the best approach. Method #1 What I originally wanted to do was convert my geometry to voxels and sculpt the heck out of the detail, then export it after doing a retopo. BUT, I can't find any way of seeing my uv image map in the voxel mode. That's bad because I wanted to get rather specific with my detail and make it match what was in the image. Method #2 I thought I would just use my geometry from LW and paint it up and use lots of normal mapping along with regular painting. The problem here was that I still need to subdivide selected areas to adjust the geometry. And I cant for the life of me find a way to do this without subdividing the whole thing when I import it. Method #3 Retopo the whole thing, subdivide where I need to, sculpt a little, then paint. My problem here is I don't know how to get my UV onto my retopo. If anyone has another approach other than these I'd love to hear them. Thanks in advance! Klane