158 replies to this topic

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Honestly, for the most accurate poly reduction whilst keeping it to under 5k, my preference is to use Dynamesh first for reducing the most, then the Decimation Master plugin. For all that I've tried, that seems to work best for me.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Also, my way of texturing is rather backwards, but in case you want to try it (because it keeps shadows), I'll just say it anyway. I'd basically take high-res snapshots of each side, top, bottom, front and back of the high-density model, then GoZ the low-density model into Photoshop and project each of the snapshots onto it. This is after I'd UV map it in UU3D, but just as good and freely available is LithUnwrap 1.3 (greatest free UV mapping program IMO).

 

I'm not patronizing you, cause I know you know the deal, but just giving a suggestion in case you want to experiment a little.

[Nazgûl]

I appreciate the tips, indeed =)
Retopology effeorts is what killed my motivation last time. I hope I can do better now... either with Zb itself or trying TopoGun which is supposed to be very good...

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

TopoGun? Never seen it before, I'll have to check it out after what short a look I had just then (gotta sleep 'n stuff)

[Nazgûl]

I think I'm onto something here... using the rather spendid tool zRemesher and experimenting with the functions of masking with PolyPaint, I can control where zBrush is going to emphasize poly count and where to restrict it. That was my initial problem with this tool, that however fantastic the algorithm is, it seem to keep poly count unnescessary high all over, as in areas where it defenitely could be very low (shins, cheek, forehead, etc) too. But this is most likely the way to go, with more attention to detail and where to tell the retopologizer to cut down on poly count, I think this first attemt of 7k can be cut to about 2k =)

Edited by Nazgûl, 04 March 2014 - 12:07 AM.

[MattTheLegoman]

That looks fantastic!

 

Will the model in game always have its mouth open?

Edited by MattTheLegoman, 04 March 2014 - 12:20 AM.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Woah... shiiiny... I have to try this out!

[Nazgûl]

If someone could post a couple of screens of a typical BFME model, without texture, and without the pink color that the Viewer ads, that would help. A wire frame model...

[Rider of Rohan]

All you have to do is go in your W3D viewer and select Wireframe Mode after you've loaded your models ...

It'll look something like this if you have the textures loaded

[Ridder Geel]

Yeaaaaa... BFME is not known for its detailed faces

[Nazgûl]

This is very hard indeed... I wish the engine could support a higher poly count. When I go below 2k polys the model is basically destroyed. how many polys are CaH models in general?

 

I wish someone skilled (in modeling for this old lame engine) could help me with these extremely time consuming tasks so I could focus on just sculpting the remaining models  Struggling with this is hard on motivation 

Edited by Nazgûl, 16 March 2014 - 01:28 PM.

[MattTheLegoman]

The CAH female elf is 2283 vertices and 3825 faces.

 

Are you able to make a texture and normal map with the model you made? Hopefully the details you miss out on in the model can go into the texture.

 

Is the mouth necessary? The vanilla Goblin doesn't have a moving mouth, so perhaps a lot less detail can go into it?

 

Pictures of the CAH female elf, face and body:

http://i.imgur.com/UUWqQ2k.png

http://i.imgur.com/hAr5AhI.png

Edited by MattTheLegoman, 16 March 2014 - 01:32 PM.

[Mathijs]

But the engine cannot support whole hordes of CaH-level units. Our hoplites in TPW were about 1k polies, and the game lagged terribly. 

[Nazgûl]

I have no idea how "vertices" and "faces" translates to polys... :/

 

I have run tests with the CaH-made Easterlings. Maybe one hundered on screen at one time, and it was no problem at that time. Dont know how many polys those are, but I guess around 5-6k each. The idea with this, was to reduce poly to under 2k for the head so the complete gobbo would be 3-4k in total, and use the high res textures for details. But maybe I just have to face the fact that this game engine is too old... *sigh*

zBRush's retopology tool is awesome, but only when going from millions to about 15k polys. Down at 1-2k it looks terrible with loads of errors. I am trying to reduce detail now before topologizing, by using "smoothing" which levels out intricate details. But still, reaching the poly count of the default BFME models will be impossible. 

Edited by Nazgûl, 16 March 2014 - 02:06 PM.

[Bofur]

I'm guessing a face is a poly(gon) and a vertex (corner) is where polies come together. So 3825 polies.

And what I'd do (but I've never modelled before, so feel free to take it as just an ignorant suggestion )is to cut that hair down the polies on the hair bobble, neck and mouth. The mouth should probably be closed for BFME, as MtL said.

[Nazgûl]

That's what I'm doing... I'm masking the model before retopo, so the engine cuts poly count massivly in all areas except eyes, nose and mouth. Closing the mouth means I have to remodel the high res model and redo the texturing. That's too much work. Either this will fly, or it will simply be waste of time (even though modling is fun). This (zBrush) is the only way I can model unfortionately. I wish I had Ruudy's skills to mass produce low poly models from scratch, but the whole concept of zB is that you sculp in very high poly =/

Edited by Nazgûl, 16 March 2014 - 02:50 PM.

[Ridder Geel]

If ya want i could look into making a low res version for ya...

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Being honest, Naz, it's not really worth using zBrush for low-res models unless they're monster-type units, which you can spend a few more polys on so they look better. Human models all look crap in >500 tris after reduction.

[Nazgûl]

Yeah they sure do.... Looking at that Gondor soldier, it looks like his head is like 6 polys in all... lol. zB is great fun, but I guess I should be modeling for modern game engines and not this relic. I tried bring it down to about 500 polys and that made it look like a rugby ball with a hole in it, lol. RG, I could send you the obj. if you wanna try to fiddle with it

 

This is so ironic. I sculpted the model in a few hours and finally figured out how to texture it. That took about 2 hours. But this part is aweful and I have spent weeks trying to experiment with solutions, but I fear that the only way to do this is to retoplogize the model using manual poly flow, which I seriously dont wanna do

 

This is interesting btw: http://www.cnclabs.c...-IMPORTANT.aspx

Edited by Nazgûl, 16 March 2014 - 10:57 PM.

[Ridder Geel]

Yea sure send me the obj file