Gleb Alexandrov (Spelle) continues his stone creation tutorial, focusing on retopology today. The first part was on the use of the bisect tool.
Gleb writes:
In this video, we'll go through the 5 ways of semi-automatic retopology, exemplified by our stone.
- Triangulate and convert tris to quads
- Remesh modifier
- Shrinkwrap modifier
- Contour add-on by CG Cookie
Thanks for watching! In pt.3, we're going to sculpt this stone using dynamic topology.
15 Comments
The "I don't care" option seems to be very efficient too. Suits me. :)
Eh, I'm not sure what you're referring to?
Using Dynamic Retopo. Part 5 titled "Say : I don't care". It is just perfectly fine too. :)
Heh, it's always a viable option too :) There is a lot of cases, where thinking about great topology actually slows down the creative process.
On the other hand, not thinking about it could potentially hurt, too)
Hmmm... The tut. looks very professional! Maybe, on the next update of Contours we'll have more features and it will be also quickly and efficiently retopologizing such stones. Shrink/Wrap looks the best here. But actually no one from these variants is going to perfectly retopo the stone. If you'll try to create bevels - it fails.
BTW Triangulate-Quadify works good. BUT then you need to check for triangles and make 'em dissapear (using Knife and J - Join path(?)). After that Bevel modifier works..
So I guess that Part 5 will be about creating a normal map (to use with a simplest retopo variant) and adding small details via textures to this stone :)
Interesting idea! It may well be :)
The non-optimal but fast way to create a bevel is to use shrinkwrap in conjunction with a high subdivision level.
I think it will be hard to unwrap it properly after this. Many edges (of a base mesh) will be "wrapped" by faces in a wrong way. So I guess then the UV unwrap algorithm will not define areas properly. Manual selecting is possible. But here is the real problem - the edges (of the "wrapping" mesh) should not be formed by diagonals of faces. I guess again - a normal map for a simplest (lowest poly count and well defined edges) remeshed object will be the better way here. Of course then beveling can be done in the sculpting stage only.
Agree.
I think the goal here is to create a stone
But wouldnt you like to go for low poly ?.
And use a bump texture map (or noise texture) to add some realism over simple shapes.
BTW there are some nice OSL shaders for different noise types.. so maybe its an idea for you
OSL is a bit overlooked i think by blender artists.
Thanks, Peter! It's definitely one of more optimal ways to make a stone - use lowpoly and bump/normal map. We may return to this stage a bit later. But low-poly often comes from retopologized hi-poly - that's another reason to know how to retopo.
Well, this is a bit off topic but I've tried a couple different music recognitions tools and cannot identify the song playing in this video. I really like it and would like to know who the artist is, thanks.
Marc, the song is called Daisy Dukes. Its from free youtube music library.
Thanks for the music library tip Spelle. So are you planning on showing people how to use a particle system to clone lots of rocks once there are a few built?
This is an interesting topic - using particle textures to control object distribution. So it's possible :).