Retopology - without creating a new mesh???

[system]

HI all.

I may be missing something simple but after lots of tutorials i still cant find a way of retopologizing a mesh without creating a brand new one (from the zsphere) and then projecting all details back onto the new mesh.

I have a mesh, with one rogue edge that i want to delete. (See image attached.)
The mesh has lots of layers, some modeling, some texture and i want to keep them.

You can add an edge loop easy enough but can you retop in any way?

My only option at the moment is to wait till model is finished, and modeling and paint decided and then reproject with less layers… but i’d like to do it now as the lowres mesh is to be exported for rigging… and also it bugs me.

Can anyone direct me to a good tutorial or let me know if it can’t be done…

Cheers!
Phil.

Attachments

[Cryrid]

I don’t think it can be done while automatically preserving all the information you’d want such as layers.

The main problem (that makes sense to me at least, but I could be way off) is that when you remove that edge, the topology/verts are going to be different compared to the higher levels and layers that you’ve also created. Right now those two triangles would subdivide to have 6 quads total, instead of just 4 quads that you’d get while removing it, and then the difference becomes exponential every time you up the subdivision level. So basically you can retopologize an existing mesh so that you wont have to start the new topology over from scratch, but as soon as you do anything that would change the vertex order then it’s going to be seen as a different/new mesh regardless.

So a projection is going to be in order whether you use zspheres or GoZ to fix it, (on a small test I just did it was even needed when adding an edgeloop to an exising sculpt), but that should wipe out the layer information.

You could try duplicating the original subtool. Then when you append or import the fixed version, you’ll still have access to the original with all it’s layers intact. That should at least open up the possibility of going through each layer individually and projecting them over to new layers on the new mesh.

If the tris aren’t currently interfering with your ability to sculpt the way you want, it may just be easier to keep them altogether.

[system]

I don’t think it can be done while automatically preserving all the information you’d want such as layers.

The main problem (that makes sense to me at least, but I could be way off) is that when you remove that edge, the topology/verts are going to be different compared to the higher levels and layers that you’ve also created. Right now those two triangles would subdivide to have 6 quads total, instead of just 4 quads that you’d get while removing it, and then the difference becomes exponential every time you up the subdivision level. So basically you can retopologize an existing mesh so that you wont have to start the new topology over from scratch, but as soon as you do anything that would change the vertex order then it’s going to be seen as a different/new mesh regardless.

So a projection is going to be in order whether you use zspheres or GoZ to fix it, (on a small test I just did it was even needed when adding an edgeloop to an exising sculpt), but that should wipe out the layer information.

You could try duplicating the original subtool. Then when you append or import the fixed version, you’ll still have access to the original with all it’s layers intact. That should at least open up the possibility of going through each layer individually and projecting them over to new layers on the new mesh.

If the tris aren’t currently interfering with your ability to sculpt the way you want, it may just be easier to keep them altogether.

Thanks Cryrid.

Yeah… i have come to the same conclusion…
I shall wait till the design is signed off and reproject with minimum layers… Or maybe leave it alone if i can get around it. Dam fool thing to miss in the first place… ha…

One note tho… I have been able to add edge loops whilst keeping higher levels and modeling… One eye loop above was done like this.
I have done a quick test on other models and sometimes a high level (6 or 7) will suddenly corrupt. But it can work well… sometimes…!

Thanks again for the reply.
Phil.