Pipeline problems! Mainly retopology and projection

[Lloiger]

Hiya one and all,

It's been a long time since I last posted here but I've come running back as I need some advice. Here's a slightly out of date pic of the model I'm working on at the moment: [](http://javascript%3Cb%3E%3C/b%3E:zb_insimg%28%27%27,%27Dazza_zc_01.jpg%27,1,0%29)

I am now at the stage where I want to re-topo the model, lay out some UVs and bake the normal map. The models consists of around 20 seperate subtools, some of which I’ll want to keep seperate (the cap for example) and others which will need to be one mesh (the body, shirt, trousers and jewellery). I thought I’d be able to merge the subtools, retopo over this and then just project the detail from the original merged object onto the new one. As a test I tried doing the above with a section of the shirt sleeve and the arm underneath and it completely failed. Essentially my problem is that I have no idea what to do next to get the high-poly detail onto a hypothetical low-poly model.

Any and all suggestions for ways to progress would be massively appreciated. It is quite possible that I’ve missed something really obvious and apologies if I haven’t explained myself very well, ol’ head is starting to ache.

[dustinbrown]

Well, if you’re planning to bring this guy into another app for rigging or rendering, you could just retopo the individual subtools, then combine them as needed in the other app. Should work fine. But if you want to do everything in ZBrush then use subtool master to combine subtools, retopo, then project. Some cleanup is inevidable using this techinque. Stiring a morph target before hand may help speed up the process, do a light glaze over the tool with the morph brush.

db

[Lloiger]

Thanks for the reply Dustin. I’m planning on taking him into Silo for the UVs then maya for rigging and rendering.

If I were to do as you say and fit the pieces together in another app, what would be the best method for getting the high-poly detail onto the new mesh? I’ve experimented with the Zproject brush before but never had much luck, theoretically would it work?

Edit: I’ve just found something else I need help with, although it’s really just an extension of the original problem. Clearly I didn’t think this project through before starting. So I’ve made this chunky bracelet and have no idea how to get the detail from it on a low poly model.

I played around with it a little earlier today; tried merging the bracelet with the arm and retopologizing a band of polygons for the bracelet but then using projectall or zproject creates a mighty mess as Zbrush tries to twist the polys into the shape of the links. This must be possible, surely!?

[system]

yes! i need help with this too. My sculpting skills are quite good but i dont know how to take the model further.

how do you take you high res zbrush model and project the details on to a low poly model. so the end result is a normal mapped low poly asset