Action Hero - Mantis Man

[gregoconn]

Nice topology and flow. It looks like your neck muscles might be running diagonally across you rmesh though?

[SolidSnakexxx]

gregoconn:
You are right. I'll be fixing that for certain. Thank you for your crit. Very helpful.

[JUPITER]

Looking good,just wondering why you wouldn't just paint the topo on and then add the details by hand,wouldn't that save alot of time??

[faman]

Supers flow topology

[dismantled]

it is so cool to see topo in action...

[SolidSnakexxx]

JUPITER:
I was thinking about using paint the topo on as well, but then the topo I planned out on paper look a lot different than the one on the base sculpt. So I decided to take the long route.

faman:
Thank you for your complement

dismantled:
These 3 days are all about Topology.... My mind has already wander to other stages... heehee

Minor Topo Update....(Glad it's almost completed)
This retopology is rally taking some time....but with patience, I should come with the mesh that's also work well for topological masking....that's the main idea behind all the 3 days of work..to make the transpose process more predictable (At least for me) I'm still indecisive of the pose....but have several in plan at the moment. Anyhow here's the latest topo...only the humna arm left...Wahoo...

[dustbin1_uk]

Man look at that!! Ain't it beautiful!!

See it goes to show that what I do is a bad habit!!

I just get the general shape and then let a higher resolution adaptive skin and projection do the rest, but this is uber efficient topology here!

One thing I do, I go up about 6 levels in the adaptive skin resolution use projection to get the details again, export that level out as an OBJ.

Then I go back down as low as I can go in resolution, make that adaptive skin into a mesh, Subdivide up 6 levels and import the mesh I exported earlier. That way I then have a sub-divided retopologised mesh. Handy!!

Do you do something similar?

[SolidSnakexxx]

dustbin1_uk, sometimes, I just love looking at those lines sipping a can of beer and see how the lines interact.

In fact, what I do is even simpler..As the Retopology tool has the projecting function build in . The steps I normally do are:

1. set the preview adaptive skin while I'm working on the topology to around 4-5 (As this should be more than sufficient for the new topology-it's denser with all the topo lines needed.)

2. The preview normally shows pretty accurate details I put on. (If I do need more subdivision I can also go up from here.) Bear in mind the bigger the subdivision, the longer it takes to preview projection

3. Simply hit the magic "Make Adaptive Skin" Button.

4. I'm left with the subdivision levels I created in the retopo process.

[dustbin1_uk]

Um...... OH YEAH!!! woah I did not realise that it did that!!

Thanks mate!!!

[wethand]

same here.

i can't imagine any simpler retopo tools than in zbrush. just draw the topology, project the details and you are done. without importing, exporting and exploding meshes... very simple.

anyway, the idea with the topological masking is awesome. i'll try that directly. thanks for that word again, solid!

your thread is one of my favorites! its very helpful and its progressing just awesome! keep it up mate!

[SolidSnakexxx]

dustbin1_uk:
Yeah. ZBrush is like the black magic of 3D World, eh?

wethand:
Yup. The Retopology tool once you get its grip, it's quite all right. Except for one I've mentioned earlier would be the snapping point when I gets zoomed in but not able to zoom in enough. However, I've managed to overcome that issue I think from reading one of the threads here..

1. What I then do (Like in my case the hand) certain part separately and save as a tool and then once the main body's completed, I'd load in the hand mesh then swap the body reference mesh out.

2. To swap out the base all you have to do is deactivate teh "Edit Topology" Then click on "Delete Mesh" in Rigging Submenu. Then of course click "select Mesh" to load in the already finished retopology hand

3. Then use the JUPITER suggestion to paint out the topology. The rest would be just connecting the topology lines between the two..

Minor Daily Update:
Of course I couldn't resist my crave to test out the topological masking with the unfinished model. This is by no mena the suggested pose for Mantis Man I was just testing out here and there about the topo line and how I might improve in the course of retopology. With the retopology, I think I can use the topological masking quite easily as it flow along the lines I've laid out.

[SirNeo]

looks very good, progress amazing, i'll watch this thread

[jp_smith]

Man Yong that's one crazy detailed retop! Have you considered that his feet might be a little bit small? I'm looking at the size of his human arm and the rule for feet is that they're typically the length of your forearm and yours seems a tad short by that standard. I also think it might help balance him out and give him some more weight if his feel were more substantial (since there's so much volume up top with that massive mantis arm). Just my suggestion. Looking great bud!

Jason

[dustbin1_uk]

Can I convince you and Alex to co-author a book on ZBrush? I'd buy it!!!

[SolidSnakexxx]

SirNeo:
Thank you

jp_smith:
Yes, I'm planning to increase the feet size. Thank you so much for reminding me about the size. I almost forgot (Will transpose increase before the posing stage). Your Overwatch is extremely well done, one of the best to say the least.

dustbin1_uk:
Hahahah You are again very kind. I'm still his apprentice, I dare not match up with my master.

Topology Update:
All done! Finally the body retopology is completed! The next step I'm pondering over would be

1. The pose
2. The texturing.

I'm still not certain which way to go just yet..but need the answer soon.

Question:
What do you guys think? If I were to texture before the pose, do you think the texture will get stretched/squashed as a result of transposing? If that's the case my answer is clear....to texture at the last step.

Here's the retopologised version.



Problems I encountered and how I solved it.
BTW, something odd happened, don't know why...when I tried to project the details using the method I posted earlier the system just crashed. But then I realized that the polygon normals were flipped. So what I had to do was:

1. Make an adaptive skin without projecting the details.

2. Do a normal Flip...by going to Tool > Display > Flip.

3. Load up the reference model and the new flipped normal one as subtools

4. Increase subdiv on the new retop version.

5. With the retop subtool active and the reference model visible, I then hit ProjectAll which brings back all the sweet details.