158 replies to this topic

[Nazgûl]

Are you still using Skype, or do you prefer PM here? =)

 

Btw, I noticed that the CaH screen that MTL posted shows the CaH model using triangles only. In zBrush, retoplogy makes the model using square polys only. Does anyone know if Sage only handles triangles, or both?

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

I think it can support quads, but it might be a good idea to triangulate the model just before you export it, just to be safe.

[Ridder Geel]

It automatically triangulates on export if i'm not mistaken oh and i still use Skype, but since im on internship im not always at home so pm would be the best way to go, but we can always talk through Skype eh

Edited by Ridder Geel, 17 March 2014 - 09:21 AM.

[Nazgûl]

The RAR wont fit in a PM so I'll wait 'til I catch you on Skype =)
In the mean time I'm experimenting with the manual topology brush, but it's darn hard...

Anyways, if you find a rather quick/easy way to help me with this, it would speed up things a lot.

And off course, whoever helps me solve this problem will gain access to my models, if needed...

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

The topology brush is the most accurate way, bar maybe the zRemesher.

 

Don't suppose this principle might help?

[Nazgûl]

This is the best I can do myself... 1485 polys, and I'm fairly content with that.

*Note to myself* I got this result from first doing a major poly reduction via the plugin Decimation Master set to 1% which cut the poly count from 1,8 million to 37k. Then I used the Smooth tool to even out the most detailed areas such as ears, eyes, mouth and most of all the long teeth which I evened out into broad blocks rather than individual spikes. Then I used zRemesher set to a target count of 2k with Adaptive topology. Combined with several different areas of masking with PolyPaint I could distrubute the poly count and obtain this result... it will do, unless RG can come up with something useful at an even lower count

 

 

Now I need to figure out how to project the texture from the high poly model below, onto this low poly, and then bake a UV map of the result...

Edited by Nazgûl, 18 March 2014 - 03:00 AM.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Apart from the ear and nose-forehead bridge which have clusters, that is the most beautiful decimation I've ever seen.

 

Anyway, I'd further recommend the use of UV Master or spherical mapping in the UV Map toolbox (on the right hand side), create a Texture Map 'from UV Map' then export it to Photoshop, then pretty much, as I think I said earlier, project exports of the high-poly painted one from different angles onto the original.

[Nazgûl]

Yes, the ear and nose was the troughest areas to lower poly count in. If I lowered too much, the ear would lose body and become hollow at the tip and for the nose, it created slashes that stretched onto the cheeks. But I think there is a way to adjust topology manually at this stage, by moving the vertices by hand and even deleting some to remove edges and create bigger polys... I think...

For the textures, I aslo think (hope) there should be a way, in ZBrush or other software, to flatten the polypainted texture onto the UV map. Your method seems quite hard as the texture would require scaling in the most streched areas.

[Kwen]

I am a bit confused as to how you would turn this "1485 polys" head into a fully-figured BFME level model without hitting extreme numbers. 1485 on just the head?

 

Now, BFME aside. You are doing some fantastic work and I am very impressed. This is an exquisite representation.

 

 

I just do not see any relevance to anything BFME. You would be better off working from the bottom up for BFME, rather than the top down.

[Nazgûl]

I understand your thoughts. But, like I said before, the SEE Esterlings use several thousands of polys and Ive tried them in game with no aparent lag difference from low poly units. For me, it seems like the number of individual units on screen affects lag much more, than how many polys each unit use. This has also been confirmed by other like in the link I posted earlier about some guy doing testing in game with Sage engine using models with 60 000 polys. Maybe the engine doesnt really use all the polys when the models are small/far away? I don't know, but regardless... This head will be combined with the low poly goblin body and all in all it should not be more than about 2000 polys per unit.

 

About modeling per se... I can't model in any other way or software than zBrush for reasong explained in the primary post in this topic. So that's why I'm stuck with these gazillion poly models

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Hold up, 60,000? Who is this guy?

[Nazgûl]

Yup, and his experiment seems to support my own theory about number of units being more hard on the engine than number of polys. 
http://www.cnclabs.c...-IMPORTANT.aspx

Edited by Nazgûl, 18 March 2014 - 05:35 PM.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Good thing they posted results, ain't it?

[Nazgûl]

I know ppl probably think I'm waisting time with this. It's just a head, I know... But being able do do (some) modeling myself is important for motivation, and motivation is the key to keep going. Just wanted to point that put for whomever might follow this topic and wonder "why isn't he coding instead". I will, as soon as I get these models done. The only way do go on with SEE and keep control is to finish each faction one by one. Going all over the place is what killed progress before when Sûl handled coding

 

Anyways, back on topic. Now I know how to model, retopologize, UV map and "bake" a texture. For my own reference, this is how I did the last part, after retopology:

 

- Load the high poly mesh.

- Load the low poly retopologized mesh.

- Append/Insert the LP to the HP so they end up in the same SubTool palette..

- Subdivide the LP to reach roughly the same number of polys (in this case 1,5 million was as close to 1,8 as I could get).

- Go to Project and set Dist to 1, Mean to approx 5-10 (experiment) and PA Blur to 0. Then press Project All.

This will transer details and the polypainted texture from the HP mesh to the LP mesh.
- Roll back to subdivision 1 (low poly) and go to UV Master plugin.

- Enable Control Painting and Protect all the face.

- Hit Unwrap.

- Go to UV Map and check the map with Morph UV.

 

For some reason I can't get the eyes to be combined in the same map though...   

Kinf of looks like Bart Simpsons mother...   

 

Edited by Nazgûl, 22 March 2014 - 06:21 PM.

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Holy shit... holy shit... oh.

[Nazgûl]

Well it's just a flat texture and I'm not fully there yet.. Need to solve the eye issue. But after that I should be ready to send this to RG for merging with the rest of the goblin body =)

Edited by Nazgûl, 23 March 2014 - 01:47 PM.

[Ridder Geel]

Ghehe sounds good

[Irenë Hawnetyne]

Also, I'd advise you to mirror one side of it, if you hadn't considered that already.

[Nazgûl]

YAY! I never thought I'd see this day...  Finally I learned all the steps on how to model, topologize, UV map and texturize a model from scratch (in ZBrush that is). I had to redo things here and there, but in the process I managed to reduce poly count even more from approx 1400 to about 1000. Now I know how fix the Great Goblin model too and whatever (few) upcoming models I need =) With any luck, I can trade with other mods to save time. Anyways, here's the final model for the new Moria Orc head...

 

Low poly retopologized mesh (1020 k)

Combined with high poly mesh (1,8 million)

 

 

Texture projected onto low poly mesh. UV map unwrapped

 

 

High res texture mapped on low poly mesh

 

 

[Nazgûl]

One final display of the finished model (polyframe active to show poly distribution), with fine tuned texture and comparison with the Weta model I used as concept. RG, let me know when you have time to try and combine this with the SEE goblin lua based body

 

 

Edited by Nazgûl, 24 March 2014 - 03:01 AM.