Let's talk about retopologizing!

[Thomas_Mahler]

Guys, I do know that I’m crossposting here, this was actually intended for the Silo boards - Mods, If you don’t like this, feel free to delete this thread, but I really feel that this topic should be discussed here as well.

So, here we go:

I think that’s a really important topic, so hold your breath and read through this. I’m currently trying to go away from my old boxmodeling workflow and try to really approach a “sculpt first, care about topology later” workflow.

I sculpted quite a lot with ZBrush in the past and have found that: 1) I'm faster. Hell, I'm SO MUCH faster sculpting in ZBrush than I'm in any other traditional modeling package.

2. I get better results (quicker). It’s really cool, if all you have to care about is form, not topology. In ZBrush, I just care about form the whole time, I don’t think like “But if I do this connect here, I’ll end up with a tri and an N-Gon there, so I have to do some clean up in this area” and stuff like that while I’m sculpting. I make my mind free of all of that “technical stuff”, about topology, etc.

3. It’s more fun for us sculptors and we can actually trash our old “modulated workflow” and work on many things at the same time: Sculpting your model, WHILE you’re also laying down textures is awesome. Really. And it feels good!

4. You can actually sketch directly in 3d, and instantly see if the forms will work out. Quickly sketching ideas in ZBrush works really well. I’m still sketching on paper first, but often something that looks good on paper, won’t work out in 3d. With ZBrush, you can actually test this out and it’ll take you only about 1 hour and not 5 or 6. Also, if you’re using Z, I found that “resculpting” works extremely well. So if you have, say, 2 characters that have a “similar structure”, you’re able to test their look out with just using the transform brushes for a few minutes (and maybe completely relaxing your model before you start over).

   My old workflow was like:

   1. Blocking out forms in Silo, adding features, doing all the edgecraft in Silo, already caring about topology, etc.

   2. UVing the whole thing.

5. Bring it over to ZBrush and finish up the displacement/normal map and texture maps. If I didn’t care about step 2, I used GUV Tiles in ZBrush to acommodate that problem.

The issue with such a “traditional workflow” is that it’s slow, you’ll often find that the loops that you laid down maybe aren’t in the right place after all and you’ll constantly have to fight with form and topology. For a sculptor, it’s just a much better feeling to not care about topology the whole time while sculpting.

So, let's try to focus on the new ways of doing things and how such a new, efficient workflow could actually look like. I've watched Zack Petrocs ZBrush DVD and like his way of working.

(For all of you who haven’t seen it: Zack blocks out a really low poly model in Maya, brings it over to ZBrush and sculpts all of the SubD levels.
Afterwards he creates a texture in ZBrush where he actually draws in the new topology. After bringing the model over to Maya again, he starts to create the new geometry according to the texture he made. He’ll then use the XY Shrinkwrap Script to adapt all the details from the old model, so that he actually ends up with the same model that he sculpted, but with animation-ready topology)

Of course, I’d use the Topology Brush for the retopologizing stage, but in general, I’d say that this way is a lot more efficient and let’s you create your work with form in mind - and not topology.

So I’m currently investigating how I can use the topology brush efficiently. I’m actually trying out many ways at the moment, for example:

1. Laying down the loops first, caring about intersections later. What do I mean by that? I paint all the loops (around eyes, mouth, nose, etc.) seperately first and later on, I’ll connect all of them, by drawing the “intersection lines”. It’s kind of like “painting by numbers”, even though it’s not an easy job to do. I still ended up killing lots of topology lines I laid down, you really have to think a lot while doing the retopologizing!

2. Doing it part per part: I’m not a big fan of this one, but it seems to be really efficient: You’ll retopologize the geometry part per part and connect these parts afterwards. Kinda like patching up NURBS Surfaces, heh! The advantage is, of course, that you will not end up losing parts you already created, just because you screwed up a line further down and have to delete it again.

Afterwards, we’ll still be able to use things like XYShrinkwrap and put the geometry back to ZBrush, to paint final details and stuff like that. So the retopologizing pass would actually be somewhere in the middle of the modeling pipeline. Kinda like: Sketch on paper, Sketch in ZBrush until you get forms that you like, retopologize them and finish everything up in Z again.

I’d love to hear how you guys are approaching the whole sculpting/retopologizing thing. How you guys actually use the topology brush, how you guys have implemented the topo brush into your workflow, etc.

For me, retopologizing is still kind of a pain in the ass, you really have to think about a lot of stuff while doing it. Even though the topology brush works really well now, it’s the “thinking and testing” that gives me the creeps: I lay down loops and after 10 minutes, I see that they wouldn’t really work out later on. Also, how would you approach a full body sculpture? If you’re doing it part per part, you’ll still have to do a lot of clean up after laying out the loops. There’ll also be situations where you’ll actually NEED to erase some topology lines but at the moment that’s just not possible (maybe really drawing the topology in ZBrush first, where you can actually erase lines would be clever, huh?) - I still haven’t experimented nearly enough with the topology brush yet, but I think we’d all profit from starting a big and long discussion here where everyone can state “his or her way of doing things”. I’d love to hear some voices from people who actually implemented Silo for retopologizing into their modeling pipeline!

Well, fire away! -------

This was about 2 weeks ago. Now, I actually already tried many things, many workflows and I start to realize how powerful this workflow actually is. For example, here’s a model that I quickly retopologized within Maya (Make Live):

[img]http://members.chello.at/thomas.mahler/dobby01d.jpg[/img]

But at the moment, I’d say that the Topology Brush is actually the best way to retopologize models. There are still many limitations to this tool and things you have to watch out for, but if you know how you’d boxmodel the forms that you laid down in ZBrush, you shouldn’t have problems laying out the topology in Silo. One trick that really helped me out is to first lay down a few “general edge loops” to define the edgeflow that you’re going for and do the rest of the retopologizing with “mini strokes” - like “edges” that you draw. If you’re doing it right, you’ll be able to just “connect the dots” and still won’t have to redo many parts if you screwed up. Instead of one long stroke, you draw 10 “mini-strokes” that you can delete seperately. You don’t have to draw one long stroke for the topology brush to work correctly, just make sure that they all meet up somewhere.

Also, with ZBrush, it’s a cool thing to use polyGroups and export these as single objects, to retopologize them in Silo. You can then actually throw all of the parts into one scene and only have to “sew” them together afterwards. Or you’re doing it “the Zack way”, drawing the topology onto the color map and snapping verts according to that one. There are so many ways, I think everyone has to find out what works best for him.

In the end, the advantage will be, that you’ll not have to fight with Connecting, dissolving edges and all of this stuff anymore, you free your mind and start to sculpt - and your models will still end up animation ready.

Of course, I do hope that the coming ZBrush update will be as cool as it seems to be, but I think it doesn’t hurt having tried everything…

I really hope that this will turn into a lively discussion where we can share knowledge, post images and just discuss different workflows and ideas behind them.

Thanks for reading and hopefully also for contributing! :)

[Josh_Tiefer]

Thomas,

Its encouraging that there are guys like u and Zac out there trying to restructure how modelling is approached. Actually, this is what keeps me up at night, and makes it difficult to sleep, I obssess, and I don’t think I’ll be satisfied till it becomes a conceptualizing medium, which in my opinion it most definately is too slow to be right now in comparison to making a drawing or digital painting.
As far as retopologizing is concerned, I prefer to rebuild in maya, by making it live, outlining the major forms with the ep curve tool, then filling in and parameterizing with the poly tool. I have been sort of frustrated by the Silo Topology brush, u can’t really erase that well, and I’m still getting strange mesh generation. To be honest though, rebuilding in general is still not a workflow that works for me. I feel that at this point right now its faster for me to get the mesh right from the get go because I’m getting topology and form in one go; this statement I just made is a major downer to me, don’t get me wrong, but right now its just working better. Also, I feel that zbrush confines me to the surface too much, if I want to add more pretrusions or adjust the positioning of fingers and such, I feel zbrush doesn’t do so well, and that I end up making mush all day.
On another note, I am terribly frustrated with the whole zsphere situation, they are so fun to pose, but unfortuneatly even with the many scripts out there to help out, they are just too quircky (adaptive skin=unpredictable and I wish unified skin would work with a large model with long fingers, but they shrivel).

All this being said, I still feel that zbrush is really mostly a detailing program, and if u read my latest post, it will explain why I feel this way.

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=27011

there is a couple issues in terms of how Z-brush sculpts that I feel precludes its ability to really be a conceptual art medium.

The next version of zbrush seems like a dream come true in many ways, but may not be out for a very long time, so I’m hoping to stumble on a workflow that I can come to terms with, and hopefully we can help eachother get there.

-Josh

[abxy]

i have a bit to add to this discussion (I hope) …i’m doing a little research before my post though. I’ll make another post a little later.

[Thomas_Mahler]

Thought I should post this update here - Just loaded this mesh into ZBrush again and utilized Mayas Deformers to change the design a bit.

I actually really start to love this retopologizing appraoch

[system]

Here is a link to Bay Raitt’s (of Weta and Gollum fame) site with a really fine thread on this subject:

http://cube.phlatt.net/forums/spiraloid/viewtopic.php?TopicID=1032

Unfortunately I find the ZSphere method a bit ‘quircky’ also at this point, but it obviously is a fine ‘tool’ when wielded by some of the masters in this forum.

[ryankingslien]

Thomas -
What are the pros of remeshing in Maya? Is it that the curves stay editable for as long as needed while still remaining constrained to the surface?

I have often found that Maya always has a way to do things that you want to do. It may be a little messier, more scripting required or getting your hands dirty in the Hypergraph but so much is possible. Before using ZBrush, I would use Maya’s deformers for all sorts of things. Lattices are awesome and the sculpt deformer tool can be useful. Now, though, ZBrush’s sculpting tools are the best deformers I have found.

The issue with retopologizing is a difficult one because there seems to be so many different needs. For example, some people will edge loop the heck out of a model. The bicep gets its own edgeloop; the knee cap gets edge loops for the patella… Some people use edgeloops to define bony masses more than muscles. For some people the patch work flow follows the muscles, for others it does not.

The thing we have to keep in mind is that the end client determines the topology. What is the end usage of the model?

Let’s say we are at Sony and our model is going to be rigged by some of the best riggers in the industry and they will set up layers of deformers for our model, possibly a muscle system, and possibly a cloth sim system that will work on the final layer of skin. Well, if this is the case, then we can only have very limited edgeloops and certainly not for individual muscles. Because of the final cloth sim on the model’s skin we have to have as even a distribution of poly faces as possible.

Now, let’s say we are on a personal project. How does topology concern us in this case? Well, we can look at what triangles and n-gons do to our modeling and say, “well we should avoid these poly faces as much as possible.” But then edgeloops have a way of economizing geometry which is why they came into use to begin with. So we may want to avoid anything other than a 4 side poly face but we will want a way to create edgeloops so that we can define muscle groups or …

In this case, edgeloops can be useful all over the model because it helps us define form and we don’t have to worry about what our rigger is doing unless… we are the rigger and then, let me assure you, you will want to avoid edgeloops around things like the bicep as much as possible!

I modeled a centaur once and defined all sorts of muscles in the horse’s rear with edgeloops. Then rigged it and discovered after a muscle system, a host of deformers and lots of weighting that all of my edgeloops really limited the shapes the horse’s rear would make. It worked ok as a model but come rigging time I shot myself in the foot, or, to more accurately reflect the pain I felt at this discovery, I shot myself in about every part of the body imaginable.

So, it all comes down to, in my opinion, as few edgeloops as possible and as many quad faces as possible.

Where ZBrush falters on the topology issue in ZSpheres seems to be where it places the “extraordinary vertices”, any vert with over four sides. Being able to place these vertices is what edgelooping is all about, no?

One other thing to mention is that the whole reason for edgelooping to exist is to economize geometry. With ZBrush, you can put more resolution in higher levels of geometry. Your need to economize geometry is significantly lessened and, hence, your need for edgeloops is also significantly lessened.

I should add though that the need for edgeloops is not nor do I think ever will be entirely removed. But we should recognize what ZBrush has already done for the concept of geometry resolution and then ask ourselves, “what do we really need here?”

Do we just need a way to deal with extraordinary verts?
or…

Well, that’s a lot said so I will leave it at that. Thanks again Thomas for bringing this up here. I would really love to hear what other people think about this. I personally think that too much is made of edgeloops right now and that we have not really codified the exact need that we are looking for in topology. Once we codify a need it will be easier to make a reality.

Cheers,

Ryan

[ryankingslien]

Hey Josh -

One way of thinking about working in ZBrush that may help you is to conceptualize your approach to working with Multi-resolution mesh editing, also known as MRME. The way I think of MRME is that it is every figure instructor’s dream. If we think of our levels of resolution as levels of form development than we can take our ZBrush experience farther and faster. At level 1 of our model we can not concern ourselves with things like toe nails. We can not get into detail. We can only focus on the gesture and planes of the figure. As we move up in resolution we can begin to focus on smaller and smaller levels of form until we get to wrinkles and the mesh is at 2 million polys. We can then go back to resolution level 3 to focus more on the sub-forms of the face: eye sockets, lips… To establish and rework the planes of the face we can go back to resolution 2.

If we localize our actions to the level of resolution that fits our task - planes of the face, planes of the lips, planes of the wrinkles - then we avoid muddy surfaces as you mentioned in another post. Our surface remains cleaner and more efficient. We let the increase or decrease in resolution automatically smooth our surface for us.

It is important to put in as much information as the geometry will hold and then move on to the next level. To say this another way, I will pull the nose out of the face until the poly facets become quite huge and unbearable, but still conform to the overall shape of the nose. Then divide the model one more time to begin to develop the sub-forms of the nose. What I am stressing here is that, from a traditional artist perspective, it is best to strain the geometry as much as possible to describe your form before you go to the next level of resolution to describe more detailed form.

The maxim could be: use the biggest poly for the task as opposed to use the biggest brush for the task.

This way, when you have all the planes defined at each level of resolution you just go up one more level and it will smooth everything out nicely.

While it is tempting to think of ZBrush as digital clay it is also useful to think of it as a poly modeler with a new take on what can be done with poly faces.

I know that ZBrush is also used as a concept design tool in film and game studios and artists are able to crank out fully realized concept designs for a creature in two days or less ( I know one brave soul who is doing no less than one finalized character/ creature a day and has been doing this five days a week for the past three weeks). So, the question is not whether ZBrush can be a design tool, it already is. The question is how can it be made even better ?

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Ryan

[Thomas_Mahler]

Hey Ryan,

It's really cool that you're also posting here, sharing your thoughts and knowledge!

Thomas -
What are the pros of remeshing in Maya? Is it that the curves stay editable for as long as needed while still remaining constrained to the surface?

The advantage over, for example, Silo, is - as you already implied - that you simply always have control over the points you already laid down. I think the topology brush sounds good in theory, but practically, as Josh already stated, it’s kinda hard to wrap your hand around as it’s also not really easy to change things after you drew them. It doesn’t feel like a brush in BodyPaint, whatsoever (that’s how I imagined the Topology Brush at first), I find that I have to really concentrate the whole time or I’ll screw up. I dunno, maybe it’s just not my tool or I don’t have enough experience with it, but, you know, I want to make mistakes while working, I want to and I need to. Or I may end up never trying out new things, cause “it could all fail in the end”. So, actually, I think retopologizing is hard work. Really is. Getting the loops just right, so that deformations would work out is hard. And always retaining an all-quad mesh is also not an easy job.

So, this should actually be an area where developers should invest a LOT of thoughts into - Seperating the art of sculpting and the “art” of edgecraft is vital, in my opinion. I mean, if you start out sculpting in the computer world, all you’ll learn is actually how to lay down topology, things you should and shouldn’t do, so that the SubD Surface algorithm won’t screw up later on, you’ll learn all the “technical” things first, because they’re a pain in the ass - and they’re the basics of doing CG Models. Sadly, the technical things don’t have anything to do with "loosing yourself in the forms, the model, so that you get it just right. That’s already hard enough. Dealing with both, sculptural art and topology at the same time is, in my opinion, overkill to our minds.

I mean, I know a lot of great artists who’re awesome at doing this edgecraft thing, who really have invested years of their life, so they know how to lay down the loops and how to efficiently do all the edgecraft stuff - They deliver top notch models. But, if you compare top notch CGI Models to top notch “real media” models, you’ll still see a big, fat difference when it comes sculptural quality. Dave Cardwell also already spoke about this in a thread here, I’ll just quote him for a second:

I see our Weta Workshop guys do amazing things in clay all the time that you
would never consider doing while working all in CG. Thinking about topology and your character at the same time constrains your creativity. Everyones work suffers because of it. I welcome any digital tools that alow me to seperate the
two task of sculpting and topology.
And I agree 100% on that statement. Everyone who ever had a quite moment with Clay or even Pencil and Paper, knows that, when you get this “creative rush” you’ll create the best work you ever did. You free your mind and stop worrying. It’s all about getting into this rush and working absolutely intuitively on something. It’s like an actor, who has to play a sad scene, thinking about people he lost and just getting into this moment. This is creativity. And I always, ALWAYS lose that feeling while I’m working inside of a traditional modeling package, cause I constantly have to start thinking about patching things up, connecting vertices, edges, splitting more edges into this part of the geometry, etc. etc. This is not sculpting to me. This is more like building up a house of cards.

Seperating Sculpting and doing the Topology stuff is really, really important and could tremendously help every digital sculptor doing his job.

I have often found that Maya always has a way to do things that you want to do. It may be a little messier, more scripting required or getting your hands dirty in the Hypergraph but so much is possible. Before using ZBrush, I would use Maya’s deformers for all sorts of things. Lattices are awesome and the sculpt deformer tool can be useful. Now, though, ZBrush’s sculpting tools are the best deformers I have found.
Well, using Mays deformers on ZBrush Meshes is still great. For example, I used one single lattice to shape the dobby mesh up, defining the forms, etc. If you check your .obj Import options in Maya, you can easily switch models between those apps, using the best of both worlds. Maya is cool and extremely powerful - And I’m often surprised what people can come up with using just the tools that are already inside of Maya. It’s definitely a great package.

Do we just need a way to deal with extraordinary verts?

or…
Even though I’m thinking a lot about it, I really don’t know how a “perfect solution” for retopologizing would look like. I can just try to tell you, from a non-programmers point of view, what I’d love to see:

So, let’s say we’re able to retopologize directly inside of ZBrush. Let’s think about the videos Pixologic already released and let’s try to think a step further. What I’ve seen is that we’re resurfacing on top of already existant geometry. That’s good. But let’s think out of the “technical cage” for a second: I think about a cast that you’re working on from the outside of the sculpture. Let’s say, we’re using “polyLines”. I’d like to lay down the general forms as loops first, so that I have the “general deformation loops” down. Then, I’d lay down the “connect loops”, that means, the “secondary loops”, so that I can define how the flow of my model should end up and where the “general deformation loops” should connect to. Afterwards, I’d like to press a button, so ZBrush connects the loops I drew and already traces the surface underath it - So the mesh that’d result would conform to the underlying structure. After this is done, I’ve seen the preview and I’m happy with the result, I should be able to go in there to work on the fine details, like eyes, lips, certain parts of the body, for example. Stuff that’s hard to get to at first. After that’s done, I’d do the same thing as before - I’d tweak points of the “polyLines”, whilst constantly previewing the resulting mesh until I’m happy with the results. And after I’m really happy with the result, I could tell ZBrush “Do a final trace!”, so that ZBrush would try to trace all the details of the underlying structure and build the polygonal data for me. So I’d end up with a final model that has all the details that my sculpture had, but with animation-ready topology.

This is actually what you already can do with specialized programs like CySlice (at least you can trace the underlying model and build a displacement or normal map from that one), or scripts like XYShrinkWrap (Edit: I have to add that XYShrinkWrap is just a MEL Script, it’s slow and can’t be used for any higher poly work - and it loves to messes up certain points and stuff like that - it’s of course not a “production ready tool”, but it’s a step into the right direction), but if something like that would really work out in this way directly inside of ZBrush and it would actually be fast and useable, then it’d make boxmodeling a thing of the past. You wouldn’t have to do your work twice, cause all of the SubD Levels have already been traced and are already inside your new mesh if you’re going into higher SubD Levels.

Of course, this is just a humble description of how someone who has no clue about programming would imagine such a feature and I’m sure that there are more logical, better ways to pull this off, but that why this thread has been created - To freely share thoughts about retopologizing. I’m excited about Siggraph and about what Pixologic will show us and I actually do hope that I have to learn a new workflow with the upcoming ZBrush version…

By teh way, Factor 5s Matthias Worch has actaully talked about the whole retopologizing stuff at this years GDC.

http://www.langsuyar.com/gdc/index.html

Here you’ll find his slides and the CySlice/ZBrush Videos he demonstrated - Really interesting stuff!

[chadtheartist]

Lots of cool information in this thread! I’m glad you cross-posted this Thomas, as I think this discussion warrants a lot of exposure.

This past month I’ve found that studios still aren’t ready to adopt a workflow like you’re trying to achieve, Thomas. Personally I’m quite surprised that this workflow isn’t as welcomed as it could be. I’m not sure if it’s just that people don’t fully understand the freedom and creativity of this workflow, or if it’s more of a pipeline issue, but from what I’ve seen over the past month I don’t think retopologizing meshes is going to be very common in most pipelines right now. I’m mostly talking about game studios, and some film studios too. Plus there is the fact that most studios I’ve talked to don’t know about Silo at all, so their not really aware of it’s topology brush capabilities yet.

But to add to the discussion at hand. I think that zsphere’s are a great tool, but they do indeed have thier limitations. For one, once you start sculpting a zsphere adaptive preview, you are pretty much stuck with that model. You have the option of creating an adaptive mesh of this, but then you loose the zsphere base, which is good to have for repositioning things like fingers, arms, etc… The new update may fix this, but it’s not out yet so it’s still a workflow issue. The one thing I do like zsphere’s for is building a base body mesh, basically because you are just focusing on anatomy rather than multiple things like clothes, armor, teeth, etc…

My main issue right now, after using Zbrush for a bit, is that it truly needs a better way to sculpt in the viewport. There does need to be more perspective control than is currently implemented, and even though the Mac version allows you to sculpt in perspective, it’s not implemented well and I find it very odd to manipulate. So for proportional modeling, I feel Zbrush needs more viewing options for sculptors.

Adding to the discussion, I am really looking forward to what the folks at Nevercenter are going to be doing in Silo. If their “displacement painting” tools allow for blocking out a mesh like we are currently doing in Zbrush, I think a lot of issues people are having with this technique will be answered. But I feel it’s a wait and see if it works as advertized type issue though. Nevercenter is going to have to add a lot of things to Silo in order to make it function like Zbrush’s sculpting tools. Things like mirror sculpting, push and pull with the move tool (like soft selection, except you can use it with a tablet easier) and an implemention of sub-d levels like Zbrush or Maya. I’m curious to see how Nevercenter is going to tackle this.

Also to add to what Thomas was talking about in regards to what he’d like to see the new Zbrush update do. I don’t know what Pixologic is planning, but I would hope that they would have a feature to convert the “old” topology details to the “new” topology model. Personally I dislike the whole xyShrinkwrap stuff because it has too many “problems” that need correcting later on. If Pixologic can find a way to make the new topology conform to the old topology without a shrinkwrap function I’d be happy. I can see this being done with displacement maps, basically comparing the old model to the new model and using that map to convert the new topology model into the old sculpt. This way you could actually sculpt with much higher resolution meshes than you can do with the current Zbrush > Maya > Zbrush approach and you’d have a greater chance of capturing all your details from your initial sculpt.

[Thomas_Mahler]

Chad, it’s always great to hear from you in one of these threads! Well, I think the problem is that most studious are still on their old, slow production pipelines, since they’re used to it and, you know, why fix it if it ain’t broken?

I’m sure that most studios will do a lot of research in this area in the future - Especially when it comes to gaming companies and film studios, since they just have to deliver higher quality content in a shorter amount of time now. And I think this “new” way (acutally, it’s a rather old way, resurfacing is a really old technique) will be the way to go. Sooner or later, more and more studios will adopt to it and then we’ll also have specialized tools that make retopologizing a lot easier than it is now.

Let’s wait for Siggraph and see if there might be some surprises…

And, to sum it all up, I’m currently doing a lot of deformation/animation tests and stuff like that and I’ll probably not have the time to finish the Dobby Sculpt, so I thought it’d be a good idea to make it available for download. It’s the first time I retopologized a model and it certainly is far from finished, some areas are still kind of dirty and haven’t really been reworked (such as the area behind the ears), but what the heck, the poly distribution and the overall flow is good, so maybe someone else finds use for the model:

[http://members.chello.at/thomas.mahler/dobby01.obj](http://members.chello.at/thomas.mahler/dobby01.obj)

Make sure you Right Click and “Save As”, so you don’t end up reading the Vertex Coordinates

Have fun and thanks for reading!

[chadtheartist]

Yeah, I’m hoping studios will be open to the idea of this type of workflow. It’s the way I prefer, although I do see how it could be a problem in certain pipelines.

I hope you don’t mind Thomas, but I played with your model some. Here’s some messing around, adding some asymmetry.

[Thomas_Mahler]

Haha, you took my model and quickly applied your own style to it! He reminds me of some 60’s actor now, but I can’t remember his name…

…and no worries - That’s why I posted my model. I’m glad you had some fun!

Well, maybe what the Silo guys are coming up with will be the way to go - I mean, even if their Displacement Painting feature will be very cool, it’ll never have all the 2.5d Features (especially Projection Master) that make ZBrush so cool. I’m sure that many modeling packages will be updated in the future, so that we get sculpting tools that closely mimic ZBrushs toolset, so that we essentially get the best of both worlds: The “looseness” and creative sculpting approach that we get through the ZBrush workflow and a whole set of polyModeling Tools that we’re already familiar with.

Still, these polyModeling Tools would have to make very drastic changes in their whole nature - Currently, the toolsets are suited for extremely precise editing, where you take care over every single polygon, every single vertex, if you split into your mesh, you split vertex per vertex. That means, that you’re slow. I imagine that maybe we could span a “net” over our models and would be able to finish them up that way. I don’t know, I’d love to see a lot of R&D when it comes to retopologizing, since it could make Digital Sculpting such an amazing thing to get into, it’d simply be much more joy than it’s right now.

Let’s wait for Siggraph - I really, really hope that the potential of retopologizing has already been seen by some company. Hopefully Pixologic

[Dash_Riprock]

I patrol these boards much more often than I post. This is not my main stomping ground, so you’ll have to excuse my low post count for a moment.

I’m a Max user of about three years and a Zbrusher of about six months. I love the incorporation of Zbrush into my digital pipeline, but I believe one of it’s greatest drawbacks is it’s inability to handle edge loops in it’s start-to-finish capacities. That is to say, we’re provided with Zspheres to model the object, transforms and digital sculpting tools to form it, delicate painting tools to give it scenery, lights and materials to give it depth and power, and correction tools for post production. It’s a complete package, but I do assert that it is lacking in some areas. There are some things that CANNOT be accomplished without proper edge loop placement because Zbrush topology will begin creasing in odd places. I’ve wished time and again I could use the revolutionary tools of Zbrush in the same way for topology correction as I use them for object deformation.

In my pipeline I’ve had a tendency to run Zbrush and Max simultaneously. Despite the obvious taxation of my computer system, I believe that this workflow allows me to monitor my edge loops better than if I worked in Zbrush alone. I’m not a Maya user, so I have no re-meshing techniques to decide the loops after-the-fact so to speak.

However, after watching the videos it looks like this technology isn’t too far away for Zbrush. The remeshing ability that is being explored in the ZB2 update vids shows that a new mesh can be created on top of an old one, and- with any luck- it will allow users to create their own loops on top of the older mesh. This is my deepest hope for Zbrush because I believe it will be another huge revolution in the Zbrush-to-Max/Maya/XSI style workflow. We may even be able to do it at lower modeling resolutions, allowing the preservation of displacement maps after the new- smart- topology is created.
I hope this made some sense…

[kurv]

Thomas, thank for this infromation, some of the best I have read…!

[Nemoid]

this is a really interesting thread from pixologic movies seems that the z sphere possibilituies to buld up a mesh with a topology suited for animation are good. what i would probably do is first model, then paint my topology on the model making a texture, then using new features to build up the new mesh following what i drew. obviously it all depends from the quality of these features…
probably a good thing would be to sculpt the mesh with not so much amount of realistic detail, topologize it with right edgeloops, then starting to really sculpt in to your heart content ?

does this makes some sense? only my 2 cents.

[Kosher]

Yeah, this is a good post about some good points. It’s sad to hear studio execs say things like “I feel that technology in 3D has really slowed in the past 10 years” and you look at their own pipeline and see they’re still using NURBS patches with extremely low res characters.

I would LOVE to see ZBrush fix their topology tools and make them work like they’re supposed to. It’s crazy, I have to admit, I am a programmer during the day and artist at night, so it’s surprising to see some of the bugs with the tools in ZBrush. I don’t know if it’s their lack of resources or development methodology but the amount of bugs, which are total showstoppers, has sapped my creative fuel to the point of almost no return.

ZBrush has focused all of their attention on making the application work for the same type of modeler, artist, and user. Creativity knows no limits in the sense of what can be imagined. The problem is, that doing and seeing are two different worlds, and the bridge for the gap between every vision to every artists creation is often full of holes. It’s one thing to be inspired to pour your heart and soul out in your work, but it’s another to be the tool creator that acts as the cup for the heart and soul to fill.

[cannedmushrooms]

Kosher

whats wrong with them?
I personally use the topo tools like 90% of the times.
And I’m a really picky person that likes to complain alot. But i really think topo tools work great.

Now Zspheres on the other hand. Are Pretty much crap.

But If you need some pointers just post a senerio. And maybe i can point you into the right workflow

[cannedmushrooms]

Poor Kosher
I think i found where you turned your back on the topo tools in the other thread.

Go there and see if that sets it right again