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Complex model with lots of bits


Innovine
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Hi, I would appreciate some advice from experienced artists about how to approach a project to model a complex structure with a lot of tiny parts, a bit like this: 

64b7ac13429277.56273b12154a0.png

 

My goal is to have a low poly model for use in a game engine.

 

Although I've only been working in 3dcoat a short time, I think I can manage something like this using sculpt room tools, but the thought of having to do the retopo, especially around all those struts fills me with despair. Should I be looking at modelling this with polygons in the retopo room directly, or in blender,  and only using sculpt for small details to the normal maps?

In general, if you were working on something like this in sculpt room, would you be paying massive attention to your use of layers, or would you just sculpt and sort out the layers and individual objects later on?

Would you divide this into many 3d coat projects and merge them later, after retopo?

 

Advice welcome because if I start off on the wrong foot I could waste so much time..

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It makes more sense to use hard surface polygon modeling tools for this type of project. For this, there is no reason to use sculting tools, except for the prototyping/concepting stage. So I would suggest you to model this with polygons in any 3d-editor. I'm afraid it might be a pain to model this in the retopo room directly.

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3 hours ago, Innovine said:

I totally love the cutoff and vox hide tools though :) Its also very good at adding primitives and the symmetry is super nice, I really click with these things.

I find that I WASTE more time piddling with verts, edges and polys, when Polymodeling and often go back to the Sculpt room. Manual Retopo tools are really only necessary for animation projects, where the topology has to be clean and optimized. It gives you total control over topology. In some cases, just using he Strokes tool can do an awesome job, really fast. Even faster than Auto-Retopo in some cases. But, for non-deforming objects, Auto-Retopo can work exceptionally well. 

The main reason I like voxel modeling when I can is, I don't have to fool with topology and how I'm going to split polys up or clean up boolean messes that can happen. I can just build and THEN worry about topology or just use Auto-Retopo and not worry about it at all. On large scale objects like and robots, etc. , just Auto-Retopo (Instant Meshes option can be awesome for this, if the default Auto-Retopo seems to finicky for a given shape) as you go (with each part), and when you are done building, you already have your low poly quad mesh version done, as well. 

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Yeah, that sounds a lot like how I enjoy modelling too. The difference being I've been manually placing every vert and quad in the retopo room trying to get a model that looks like one constructed in a poly modelling way. I had big trouble getting the stroke tool to work on long, thin objects, but maybe that's just me. I had not considered autotopo for this; maybe I should give it a few more chances?

I guess I am leaving retopo quite late too, then facing a huge job. I've been afraid to do it at the same time in case I change the sculpt and invalidate the retopo model. I'll give autotopo on small parts a go and see how it works out, thanks for the tips!

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14 hours ago, druh0o said:

It makes more sense to use hard surface polygon modeling tools for this type of project. For this, there is no reason to use sculting tools, except for the prototyping/concepting stage. So I would suggest you to model this with polygons in any 3d-editor. I'm afraid it might be a pain to model this in the retopo room directly.

 

8 hours ago, Innovine said:

Yeah, that sounds a lot like how I enjoy modelling too. The difference being I've been manually placing every vert and quad in the retopo room trying to get a model that looks like one constructed in a poly modelling way. I had big trouble getting the stroke tool to work on long, thin objects, but maybe that's just me. I had not considered autotopo for this; maybe I should give it a few more chances?

I guess I am leaving retopo quite late too, then facing a huge job. I've been afraid to do it at the same time in case I change the sculpt and invalidate the retopo model. I'll give autotopo on small parts a go and see how it works out, thanks for the tips!

Using blender and boxcutter add-on can achieve similar workflow, and get clean low-poly models.  Auto unwrap(no retopo required) and do the painting in 3d-coat.

It will be a pain to retopo all those parts one by one unless 3d-coat can auto retopo multiple objects.  There is work around (such as combining multiple parts to one voxel layer) but still a pain to manage.

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8 hours ago, Innovine said:

Yeah, that sounds a lot like how I enjoy modelling too. The difference being I've been manually placing every vert and quad in the retopo room trying to get a model that looks like one constructed in a poly modelling way. I had big trouble getting the stroke tool to work on long, thin objects, but maybe that's just me. I had not considered autotopo for this; maybe I should give it a few more chances?

I guess I am leaving retopo quite late too, then facing a huge job. I've been afraid to do it at the same time in case I change the sculpt and invalidate the retopo model. I'll give autotopo on small parts a go and see how it works out, thanks for the tips!

The strokes tool may need you to increase the SPLINE POINTS DENSITY (Tool Bar above the viewport), because if the points are too few it can cause problems. Remember, with Auto Retopo, if you have an open-ended object like a pipe, it will try to make it double sided, and on very thin objects it can struggle or fail. If you want some thickness (doublesided), it's a good idea to RMB your voxel layer > EXTRUDE, to give the object a fair amount of thickness, beforehand. If it's really thin, you might have problems.

If you want a one-side mesh, I try to use a primitive to cap the end of a voxel object > RMB the voxel layer > FILL VOIDS. That will fill any open pockets inside and make Auto Retopo work much better.

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5 minutes ago, animk said:

 

Using blender and boxcutter add-on can achieve similar workflow, and get clean low-poly models.  Auto unwrap(no retopo required) and do the painting in 3d-coat.

It will be a pain to retopo all those parts one by one unless 3d-coat can auto retopo multiple objects.  There is work around (such as combining multiple parts to one voxel layer) but still a pain to manage.

I have the HardOps and Boxcutter addons and I found 3DCoat really hates those models. Too many N-Gons created. It may look fine in Blender, but try and import that mesh into 3DCoat or Substance Painter and see what kind of mess you get.

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1 minute ago, AbnRanger said:

I have the HardOps and Boxcutter addons and I found 3DCoat really hates those models. Too many N-Gons created. It may look fine in Blender, but try and import that mesh into 3DCoat or Substance Painter and see what kind of mess you get.

I triangulate those N-gons or the whole model in retopo room.  Still looks fine.  Good enough for conceptual purpose.

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