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Retopology in maya
Retopology in maya
Maya Project Set Up
Maya Project Set Up
Before we start with anything in Maya we need to set up our project - Basically we need to set the location of where all of our files originate and this also makes it much easier when opening up our recent/latest project, because it will essentially always look back to this location for the files we need. It wil also automatically open up to the set Folder placement for saving or opening other files related to this project.
In the picture below I've set it to my OneDrive folder (I previously had it on my external drive) so that it is easier for me when I hand in the project later - just providing the link.
Our "Scenes" folder is where we want all of our Maya project files to be, but to make it a lot cleaner I have made separate folders to easy navigate between WIP (Work In Progress) files or finished projects. The same goes for our Texture files later on - they will all go into the "sourceimages" folder, then I will separate each folder so that I can easily navigate that folder as well.
Retopology Resources
Using a LinkedIn Learning course for Retopology, I will be taught:
Set up the sculpted model
Draw guidelines
Use the modeling toolkit
Add and delete polygons and edge loops
Retopology tips and tricks
Using the GoZ plug-in in ZBrush and MAYA, I can directly transfer my sculpture into MAYA super quick as long as I have both applications open. Currently my Sculpture is super small, so we want to increase the size a bit. (It's so small we can't even see it when we zoom out to normal zoom in MAYA).
Unfortunately I found some black spots in my character's hair, so even if I re-meshed, deleted higher/lower poly it would not disappear. The right side is completely fine, but this keeps happening on the left side - time to see if I can find some answers.
Using Google, LinkedIn and other sites I found a couple "possible solutions" but none has worked so far. I went back to ZBrush to see if maybe the model was too detailed even after using ZRemesher before. I went from 4-ish million TotalPoints and managed to get down to just over 1 million without losing too much detail. Still having a save of a higher detailed model available if anything goes wrong.
Before
FIXED!
Instead of using GoZ to export - I tried using the .FBX importer instead, as instructed by one of my Game Art tutors. According to him the GoZ can be very glitchy at times, and now instead of black it comes in a darker grey tone instead.
I was told I needed to do "Mesh Display"-> "Reverse" because the mesh itself apparently was flipped with exporting the file into MAYA. And for the "black dots" it was camera clipping settings as it apparently won't be able to distinguish when several meshes are too close together.
Using the tutorial video I am drawing some Grid Guides to make it easier to do the retopology later on - basically putting down lines where it's very obvious. There's a couple lines I see that I might need to take a look at later on as they don't quite "meet the requirements" and might mess things up later.
Using the Grid guides doesn't mean everything is said and done once you start the retopology, you can change the guide lines later on if they don't quite work as expected.
With the above guide lines, I used the "Quad Draw" in the Modeling Toolkit to create vertex across the edges (where the lines meet) and to see what it would create so far. I am not too happy with the nose and the mouth here and some of the guide lines are a bit extreme - so I need to create a couple more to smooth out some areas out but also fix some awkward lines as well.
After I added some more lines and fixing some - this is what the current selection of the face looks like. I am a bit happier with how the mouth/nose area turned out in this one and I also need to do some lines within the eye socket as I've "sculpted a hole" in there so it needs to be re-topologized as well.
Watching the tutorial video over and over again I feel more confident than before with this way of re-topologizing a character.
Watching/Listening to the video constantly as I am doing my retopology makes it easier, or rather makes me more confident when I am doing my own retopology on my much more detailed character than his.
But I am worried about the head - as I think currently my head is too "detailed" for what it needs to be as I will be having the hair on top anyway. I will be revisiting the head later on I think so that I can just get the rest of the body done as soon as possible and then fix the tighter meshes later on.
Unsure how detailed I should keep the rest of the body mesh as the body is supposed to get covered in clothes afterwards but it is also supposed to be rigged for animation so I would like it to be done in a good way for it to move nicely as well.
I decided that if there are some weird parts of the model that is going to get covered with the clothing - I will keep it there if I cannot find a way to fix it. But for now any weird mesh interactions will be double checked and hopefully fixed after I've done all of the retopology.
This makes for the main body re-topology done - or at least for now until I go over it again to make sure there's no weird things going on, like weird stretching anywhere. But since most of the body is going to be covered in clothes I think this should be okay for now until I revisit it to double check everything.
At first I seemed to be having issues with re-topology simply because everything "should" be neat and 4 squared essentially - but as I had my tries and errors I felt like I was getting more and more used to it. Especially having a tutorial to watch along as I am working.
At first I somehow messed up the skirt really bad to the point where there was a "hole" in it, and it was unfillable in Quad Tool and even using the "Bridge Tool" wouldn't fill the area. So I simply just started over and this time it went much better as I was keeping an eye out for what I was doing. It also looked more even as I went along.
Shirt
Shirt
With the shirt I started mapping out where the "middle" of the shirt would be on the back and front so I could mirror that part later on. Then with the shoulder part I made a ring as a starting point
The shirt went really well - but there are a couple 5 stars, if not only one that needs to be fixed once I go over it again before mirroring it and moving on to UV-ing.
Updated shirt mesh
I revised how I retopologised my meshes and had to relax the shirt mesh all over and change some edges that made it a bit awkward. Erased some extra edges here and there, and also made sure it was more even throughout the mesh so it wouldn't have some weird stretching anywhere.
Mirroring
Mirroring
Having done half the side of the body and the shirt - I used the Mirror function found in the "Mesh" menu. Depending on where the pivot point is set and the object you might need to change the Mirror Axis so it mirrors to the Right or Left, but for me the default was correct so when I hit "Mirror" it appeared mirrored correctly.
Sometimes there might be a need to delete some faces near the middle so that it mirrors properly and stays symmetrical.
Underpants
Underpants
Started from the middle and did the left (on image) side first and then mirrored it later on. Tried to keep it as even as possible and relaxed the mesh a bit afterwards.
Note for show & tell:
Note for show & tell:
Only about 2-3 things remaining to be retopology-ed
UV-ing should be done this week
Texturing over easter
Shoes
Shoes
Apron
Waist belt
Back Ribbon
Hair
Hair
The hair was incredibly awkward to do, since I had originally modeled it with so much detail - so figuring out how to retopologise it correctly was a job. But I tried my best and had to add a little extra in between the back so that it wasn't just open - it would show behind the model's face.
Model status as I've done most of the retopology
Cleanup Process
Cleanup Process
To get the model ready for UV-ing I had to make sure I had deleted history for all objects, and freeze the transformations. I moved the model's anchor point in between the legs and close to the ground so that I could easily move her to the middle of the scene.
Freeze Transformations - "Modify -> Freeze Transformations"
Deleted History - "Edit -> Delete by Type -> History" (Alt + Shift + D)
Move Anchor Point - Press W to get the Move Tool, then D to move the anchor point.
Press the Magnet with a Grid to Snap the model to the Grid, then move it to the middle.
To the left is also my renamed and cleaned up "Outliner" where I have renamed everything I have retopologised and deleted the original model. I still have kept a save file with the original model, in case something goes wrong or if I want to change anything later on. It is also just a nice thing to have backups just in case.
UV-ing
UV-ing
Shirt, first try
Seemed like a good first try, but for adding textures (later) I experienced issues when trying to like up textures correctly, thus I decided to just try a simpler UV making cuts where it seemed appropriate.
Shirt, second try (used for Substance later)
After trying to texture the first set of UVs for the shirt, I realised I had made too many cuts for my own good. It was hard to get the lines to line up together when shading and the textures would just look off in general.
Apron, first try
Apron, second try
After texturing the Apron, I realised it seemed really weird to just have a cut in the middle. Thinkig back on how "straight" and apron really is it would not make sense for it to have a seam in the middle in the real world. It also cut the texture in "half" when I applied it and you could clearly see the seam on it.
Skirt, first try
Skirt, second try
After realising I made too many cuts, I tried only making cuts at the sides of the skirt.
Underskirt - first try
Underskirt - Second try
Realised it made no sense for a skirt in real life to have seams in the middle and on the sides - looking at a skirt that I have, it has a seam on one side of it to connect it together. I tried just cutting the skirt in half and that seemed to work just fine with the texture later on.
Underpants - Safety shorts - First try
Made cuts where it seemed appropriate for shorts to have cuts/seams, and if it doesn't look too good later on it might not bother me as it will not really show at all as we will only see the skirts on top of it.
The "belt" and the ribbon
With UVing the ribbon and the belt, I decided to separate all of the objects as it would make it much easier to UV. Ribbon itself was super easy to UV as it was very obvious (to me) where the cuts/seams would be - and then I UV-ed both sides of the ribbon lace as we need to see both sides of it. If I had only UV-ed and retopologised one side, the other side would be black and have no information.
The Neck "lace"
The shoes
The shoes seemed fairly straight forward to UV as I just made cuts where I could see a real life shoe be built up like. I separated the bottom from the top, then I cut out the "middle" part as well as I may want to make it a different colour to the one that is underneath.
Using the tutorial videos provided to me, I UV-ed only one side (the left one), then I deleted the right shoe after freezing transforms and deleted history from the left shoe - then mirrored it so that I wouldn't have to UV the right foot as well. I made sure to flip the UVs for the Right shoe as they were showing up as red in the UV window.
The Hair
This is where I realised making a certain type of hairstyle was maybe not my greatest idea. At the very least I know for next time to maybe simply-fy it for UV-ing in the future!
Note to self:
In the future I will take into account that I need to UV the hair that I make in ZBrush, therefore I should make it an easier to UV hairstyle..
I just tried to make cuts where it seemed obvious to have cuts and the squares lined up okay. I have a half "closing" in the middle of the head because if I didn't add it there would be an opening between the head and the hair, when the head is showing.
The Body
For UV-ing the body, again , I just tried to make cuts where it seemed most likely to make cuts. I could maybe have not done the fingers "separate" but following a video this is what they did so I went along and did the same thing myself. I separated the bottoms (the bum area) from the torso and the legs to not have such a big piece to fit into the UV editor.
Most of the body will end up being covered with clothing - but I still wanted to make the UVs look as good as I could in case I need it for later.
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