How to get rid of single Triangles left over in your model

[Jax_Cavalera]

I started a thread looking at a possible bug where the object was not allowing me to close up gaps left from Autopo.  http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14954

 

At the end, I was left with 1 Triangle on it's own and am now trying to find a way to get rid of it.

 

The only way I can think to achieve this goal would be to painfully shift the triangle's position from where it is up to the groin area on my model so it' meets with the Triangle from the other side... at which point.. I can merge them together though this will destroy my symmetrical seam that I have right now and isn't ideal.

 

What other way is there to fix such an issue?

 

I am going to try some things and if I get a solution I will upload a video showing how I did it for others.  Hopefully someone has already faced this problem before and knows the way to fix it. 

[TimmyZDesign]

I saw some of your other posts in addition to this one. I suggest that you don't bother with autopo on a character mesh that you intend to animate. Do the retopo manually. If you know how to create good topology (edgeflow), then it will go fairly quickly, and you will not have many problems with the tools. The tools in 3D-Coat work much better if you are building good topology. Also, it is usually ok to have some triangles in certain parts of your mesh.

 

Andrew is currently working on improving autopo in 3D-Coat. We will likely see a new experimental build in a month or so. Hopefully the new autopo will generate better topology.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Hi, thank you for this advise.  The critical selling point for 3D Coat to me was it's Autopology toolset.  I was hoping to be able to generate good, quick retopo meshes as it is only a 2 person team working to create all the assets for a 3D game we are developing.

 

Based on what you are saying and my experience and research, the ONLY way to get rid of that remaining triangle is to painfully shift it's position up to meet it's mirror partner and then join them in a seam location that won't matter too much.

 

I might even be able to turn them into mirrored Quads once I get them to meet in the middle.. shame it's at the tip of the figure's toe right now.

 

This all being said and done, there are other free programs that allow for very quick and painless retopology if you are to do it manually.  When I say very quick, I mean in comparison to slower manual retopology.. not Autopology.

 

Hopefully in the next release this type of issue is alleviated.  Worst case if the remaining Triangles in the mesh must be there, if they could auto translate somehow from X position to Y position that would be great too.  So you select the triangle face you want to shift.. then select the quad or tri face where you want it to go.. press enter or something and it does all the mini shifts to get it there.

 

Wow actually adding something like that would drastically improve things and it wouldn't really be that big a deal if you had a tri located in the wrong area.. you can quickly bring it to the mirror seam and fix it up

[TimmyZDesign]

I have used Topogun for manual retopology, but I prefer 3D-Coat. Manual retopology does not have to be extremely time-consuming. If you use the right tools at the right times, and also if you focus on building good topology from the very beginning, it is possible to work reasonably fast. I recommend starting with the Strokes tool to get the majority of it done, making sure you set up poles in the right places. Then filling in the rest is not so difficult. Also, you will be able to decide on the placement of your "unavoidable" triangles along the way, instead of being dictated by the pre-determined topology of an autopo mesh.

 

Also, you asked about sculpting (in a different thread):

 

I like 3D-Coat much more than Sculptris. In 3D-Coat you have many more options. While in dynamic tesselation mode, simply by holding down SHIFT and brushing on your mesh, you can choose to either smooth, powerful smooth, relax, tangent smooth, reduce, decimate, reconstruct, add detail, or add "extra" detail. Basically you have a LOT of control over the resolution of ANY part of your mesh. If that isn't enough, 3D-Coat also lets you cut off parts of your mesh, or cut holes in it, in any shape that you want. If you somehow make a jumbled mess of everything, there is a CleanClay tool, a Reconstruct tool, a CloseHole tool, and options to tangently smooth or decimate parts of your mesh (or the entire mesh) if needed.

Edited August 12, 2013 by TimmyZDesign

[Jax_Cavalera]

Hi and thank you for this information.  Do you find that your 3D Coat program crashes if say you do the topology.. then you delete the topology mesh on the right hand side.. then you click on the hi-res mesh again and choose autopo?  I thought I'd give that a go but it always crashes :s  I guess once you do Autopo once on a hi-res mesh you can't do it again unless you start a new file?

 

Hmm those extra features do sound handy though most are easy to achieve inside of Sculptris with it's good integration with a pressure sensitive pen.  The best feature you highlight is the one that lets you cut into your mesh to make gaps etc.

 

Do you have the same issues I'm experiencing when you work with your 3D Coat Sculpts or is this just 3D Coat struggling to work with imported Obj files?

[TimmyZDesign]

Yeah, honestly 3D-Coat (like any software) does have its share of bugs. I've been using 3D-Coat for several years (3 years...maybe 4?), and it used to have a lot more bugs than it does now. I'm actually pretty impressed by how much (and how quickly) it has improved. I still get annoying crashes every so often, but I save often, so it's not too bad. The good thing is that if you find a persistent bug, you can report it on the official 3D-Coat bug reporting website ("Mantis"), and there is a good chance that it will be fixed in just a few weeks. Sometimes bugs that I have reported have been fixed overnight! No other software that I have used has that kind of prompt customer service.

 

As far as OBJs go, I've found that the best way to work with them in 3D-Coat is to convert them into voxels when you import. 3D-Coat likes voxels. Obviously you don't HAVE to do the conversion, but I find things flow a bit better that way. Once you have made your OBJ into voxels, then you can switch it into surface mode and start using the surface sculpting tools, or if you want dynamic tesselation, then use the LC (Live Clay) tools. An important thing to consider though, is you might want to run the Clean Surface command once you enter into Surface Mode (and before you start sculpting). This will give you a better topology spread than the mesh you got right after the voxel conversion. You can see the big difference by toggling wireframe view before and after you run the Clean Surface command. The Clean Surface command is found in the Voxel menu.

 

This is the procedure for importing your OBJ and converting it to voxels:

File-import-import mesh for voxelizing. Choose your OBJ in the File browser. A tool Options box appears. Use the scale widget in the viewport to scale up your model to the desired resolution. The bigger you make it, the more detail you will capture, but a really huge resolution will slow down your computer. You will see the resolution in the Tool Options box. Once you have the desired scale and resolution, click on Apply. Your OBJ will be voxelized.

 

Now that you have the voxel version of your OBJ, you can go to the retopo room and start doing retopo on it. Like I said, I think manual retopology is better than Autopo for character models that you plan to animate later. Also, you will be able to create nicer UVs for a model with nice edgeflow. Autopo creates spiraling edgeloops which basically messes everything up.

[Jax_Cavalera]

Thank you very much for that info that is a huge help and YES!!  the spiraling edge loops are a real pain.  That is going to help a lot more in producing good topology.  I'll have to give the sculpt tools a try and see how they go.. they sound worth the time to learn enough to test out definitely.  I think as long as I start with only Quads and keep only Quads, then I shouldn't end up with any Triangles.

[Tony Nemo]

If you manage to create a good topology for a biped, save it and use it for all your bipeds by snapping it to the voxels in the Retopo room. Small areas where this may fail can be cleaned up by hand especially as you will be dealing with far fewer polys.