I don’t know if anyone has covered this before, if so a link would be appreciated.
My question is, are there any free plugins, or built in features of 3DS Max, LightWave, or Maya that allow one to draw polygons on the surface of a hi-resolution surface in order to re-topo? I know polyboost is an option, but it is expensive. I am curious to know if any of the three mentioned apps have this capability built in or a free plugin for doing so. Thanks.
I dont know about max or xsi, but in maya you can make an object live (Modify, make live) and build the topology around it… when you move the vertexes, edges or faces they stick to the “Live object”, now… a very cool new workflow is to decimate the mesh, and export it as an obj, then import it into maya, build the new topology around it and project the mesh details in zbrush or do the Normal, Occlusion and Texture projection in Xnormal.
Zbrush is capable of retopo, it’s a little hard to get the hang of it, but gives very good/quick results.
http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/max-retopo
A script to retopo in max.
XSI can retopo already because of the high poly counts it can take in. just turn on face snapping and you’re all set.
But using a decimated mesh is much better on your system regardless…why take in 12million polygons when you can do it in 100k?
Thanks so much! I appreciate the helpful response. I tried it out and it seems to work ok, but ill give the maya make live a shot and see how it compares. Thanks! 
As for Lightwave, nothing comes off the top of my head besides Meshpaint, but it wouldn’t be a very quick method as you’d only be doing it point by point without it automatically creating the polygons as you go. I can’t say I’ve ever used anything as clean and simple as the ZBrush for doing it.
I find Zbrush to be troublesome. I created a thread in the past about retopology and the order you create your polygons. I get various holes in the mesh and I feel like my time has been wasted since fixing it is tedious and even more time consuming.
Max 2010 had the best retopo tools with PolyDraw, or Polyboost w/ older versions. It works like Zbrushs retopo tools, but way better.
Maya out of the box has Make Live, but it is kind of crappy. There is however a great plugin called Nex, which is featured in the latest Gnomon Nex Gen modeling video. It works exactly like the Max retopo tools, but with some better features.
XSI has a shrink wrap feature which essestially wraps low rex geometry around a high rez model.
Hope this helps,
Matt
Has anybody used the new Max 2010 retopo tools for a character yet. I’ve been trying to look for tutorials or documentation but can’t find much.
(hopefully we won’t even need the Max tools with Zbrush 4 on it’s way :D)
cheers
I know you didn’t mention this as an option but Blender (www.blender.org) also allows you to retopo by drawing a mesh on the surface of a high res model.
Its free so maybe worth a look if you’re not committed to any of the other packages you mention.
Richard
Thanks Richard. I agree and Blender is an amazing program especially being free. However I am not comfortable working in that app because I haven’t learned its interface yet, but the other ones mentioned (Max, Maya, LW) are all apps I use often so I wanted to stay within my comfort zone 
Thanks for the response though.
There is a bit of a learning curve with Max’s retop tools - you really have to just dedicate a few hours to learning them. The only tutorial I know of is Ian Joyner’s Gnomon character modeling DVD. He spends a some time demonstrating the Polydraw tool, which is all you need to retop a high rez model.
Hope that helps.
Matt
Thanks Matt, I’ll check it out!!