I created the low poly in Max and only used Max from this point onwards. I still would say I have learned a lot with Mudbox as at the start of the year I knew nothing about the software but, through my research, I now know the basics and some extra uses of the software that I can take forward in future endeavors.
I believe that if I had created the model all as one object the issue with the Retopologize tool not working in Mudbox may have not arose as this would have made the poly's and geometry flow better within the model. Instead of creating the different parts of the model separately and adjusting/ adding to the geometry to attach the new parts of the amour whilst attempting to make the geometry flow, I should have done it this way. I believe if I did it this way that the poly count could have been even lower as well, again improving the outcome of the model and my turn around time.
To create my low poly from the high poly I followed a similar process to the methods I used to make the original bust. As well as all of my other references and guides I had already to create my model I also had the other advantage of having my high poly in the scene as well.
I made the high poly transparent so that I could start my low poly ever so slightly inside the original bust, as the low poly needs to be as close to the original as possible but not be larger than the original. So a lot of time was taken ensuring that I made the model to the best of my ability, as low poly as possible and as close to the high poly size as I possibly could. See below my low poly being created inside the high poly using the high poly and the planes as a guide. The chest is slightly to big but was reduced at a later date.
I later had to add more detail for the Projection mapping to work better as well as to tweak the chest but the low poly model that I created is at the very top end of what an in game character model would normally be, poly count wise. This is due to needing to add more detail to the model to make the normal map work better and project more of the original bust. I will cover this in more detail in my up coming posts.
Here is my high and low poly together. I have put auto smooth on all of the smoothing groups for the high poly and 1 smoothing group for the low poly ready for mapping.
Here is the low poly without any smoothing groups. The model isn't perfect but I was pushed for time and the model does what it is required to do. The model was tweaked and changed as I went along so this isn't the final end result but is close.
If I was to create the low poly first as I originally intended to I believe that the issues that arose from creating my low poly afterwards wouldn't have surfaced as I would have created the high from the low instead. I have established that the biggest flaw in my dissertation has been creating my high poly first instead of my low poly as this has caused most of the issues. But this was due partly to my research into Mudbox and the Retopologize tool, so I have learnt the hard way not to use this tool as it doesn't work as I want it to and has given myself more unnecessary work and issues to overcome, but I have learnt from this and I now know, that for me personally it is best to create the low poly first and then the high poly from it and DON'T touch the Retopologize tool.
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