I have indeed at last found a way and a workflow that works, with C4D and the Mocca module with some scripts. Marvelous Designer will never be able to deliver a quadmesh, for the simple reason that no one else have. (delivered a good enough tri to quad conversion that is). So where is the people using retopology? After all it is a quite useful thing to have in your skill set not only for Marvelous Designer but also for cleaning up sculpting models and the like.

So how do you go about it? Is there a better way? Anyone tried Polyboost plugin for Max?

Why the aversion to tri's? I grant you they do not look pretty but they work.

Phil, you will never be able to do advanced clothing with thickness, belt and borders, etc etc  without loop selections and the help you get from a nice clean quad mesh.

And why use a 3,5 MB zBrush model when a 20-30K optimized model looks just as good?

Good point. Yes if you want to do any additional editing I would agree with you.

ZBrush has a good retopology tool. I believe that you can also use it to get lower poly counts. I'd have to check to be sure, but I think it is controlable.

Phil, I have no faith in the zBrush and retopology. The workflow is extremly convoluted and the Decimation Master produces uglier mesh than I hiertho though possible. I want only the most perfect mesh possible. With all due respect,(without your site I would never got started), what I am after is persons who do retopology on a regular basis!

The best retop tool right now is Topogun, followed by 3DCoat...

Are you using any of these? (for retopology) I ask because I want only seasoned, regular users. I can also read forums and hearsay. Just for the record I have tried both Topogun and 3DCoat, (and zBrush too). But I have not tried Polyboost so if anyone has tried that I will be extremly interested.

Edit: I take it for granted that automatic conversion is not possible but a combination of tools and 'hands on'.

I use topogun, and have heard good things about 3DCoat, so I guess that bit's hearsay. I also use XSI's tools for hard surfaces where I need precision. XSI also has very good quadrangulation and decimation tools.

But if you've already tried all these out, why ask us what is good ? Use whichever one you like...

EDIT: Some degree of automation is possible and I believe 3DCoat actually allows you a lot of control over it's auto retop feature. I'd try a demo and see.

"But if you've already tried all these out, why ask us what is good ? Use whichever one you like..."

These are complex programs and it is only possible to make an accurate assessment of it after several hundred hours. I assume that I am not the only one who want to know the 'best' i e the fastest way to do it. Instead of each and every one of us spend days, weeks and months experimenting we can compare the time it takes to do a certain model we agree upon and arrive to some kind of conclusion.

Edit: One thing I know for sure and that is the 3DCoat's automatic retopology is utterly worthless.

It will still be down to a personal opinion.

One may find the GUI "intuitive" another may find the same GUI unworkable.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10255731/V4_jacket.zip

 Edit: And keep the UV map islands as in the original. (or as near as possible)

I used Blender's retopo in version 2.49 and it worked fine. I haven't tried it with Blender 2.5 yet.

Hi Nanette, Blender sounds interesting. What did you used it for? (The retopology I mean)

I use 3d coat for retopology, to create usable figures with mid to low poly counts out of high-resolution Zbrush exports and voxel sculpts. I do this manually, “drawing” the new topology over the high-resolution models. It’s a comfortable process, but it takes time.  

It may be unconventional, but I prefer to sculpt at high resolution during the creative process and establish workable topology after the fact.

I’m too busy working on my own stuff to offer my assistance with benchmarking but I wish you luck in your quest for an adequate retopology toolset.

Paloth, "It may be unconventional, but I prefer to sculpt at high resolution during the creative process and establish workable topology after the fact."

I don't now anything about it being unconventional or not but I am certain that you use the best way. And I agree when you say that it is a comfortable process.  Very relaxing, almost therapy! :) I understand that you are busy at the moment but could you make a educated guess over how long time it would take you to retopologize the model I posted?

I'd give it an hour.

Attached Link: http://www.topogun.com

That said, Modo, Silo, Max, etc. all have the ability these days to do retopo work. It's a simple snap and constraint action, so it really depends on how well you know your tools and if you feel like including a new app for this one thing. Topogun has some additional features like texture swapping from the sculpt to the lower res model and other map generators that may make it worth a look to you. Otherwise, you may want to see if you can find a method in your current app that works.

Teyon, So how long do you estimate it would take to do the above piece of cloth in Topogun?

 Edit: The reason I think that a plugin to some of the industry standard programs like 3ds max, Maya or C4D (for example the new Polyboost for max) would be better is because you can use all the functionallity already in the high end application! (But I might be wrong)

Not long but it depends on how many polys you want and the method you used. If you're using the new beta it would be less than 45 minutes...probably a half hour since it's primarily tube based. You could even get away with using symmetry in the new beta since it doesn't require 100% symmetry on the reference to work, which would cut the amount of time down. If you're using version 1, alot less is automated so you're probably looking at a full hour to maybe an hour and a half if you want to capture every wrinkle.

The beta of Topogun 2 has these nifty tube thingies...they remind me of loft curves in Rhino3D. They will conform to the mesh and will generate any number of polys you set to them. Once done, you can then build off them for the rest of the shirt. Alternatively, you could just paint the topology on top of the reference mesh and then bridge or manually combined polys to match up the various surfaces generated. All of this mentioned could be done in a few minutes. Now if you want to get more detailed in the topology generated, things will obviously slow down a tad but the surface itself is simplistic so there's little need. The only areas you'll probably want to do manually are the edges of the shirt and the collar. I really don't see it taking longer than 45 minutes and even that is longer than it probably would take.

Attached Link: http://vimeo.com/topogun/videos

Teyon,

The price $100 for a single license sure is right. The last time I tried was version 1 so now you have convinced me to try the new version.

To be able to quickly make your own mesh of any model is good for your self-confidence! :)

Cool! The features in the beta for version 2 is well worth the cost of version 1 - especially since you get to play with version 2 right now! :D Hope it goes well for ya.

Attached Link: http://www.ShareCG.com/v/47408/view/11/Poser/PropViewer-3.2

Download PropViewer and convert it to quads, it converted the V4_jacket pretty well.

Remove the txt extension from the file

The mesh to the right was changed, it was decimated, simplified, some kind grid parameterization, Poisson ???, Laplace ???, (don't knw the correct names). PropViewer doesn't change the number of vertices and its position, neither UV. It only combines two triangles into a quad where is possible.

MeshLab has a lot of tools for editing and correcting meshes or scanned range data, sometimes crashes and the output is always a triangle mesh. This doesn't matter because once you have a regular grid of triangles in the way you want you can convert into quads using PropViewer

As I said in the beginning of the thread, you will never be able to do advanced clothing with thickness, belt and borders, etc etc without loop selections and the help you get from a nice clean quad mesh. It is not enough to combine two triangles into a quad it must be orderly.

"The mesh to the right was changed, it was decimated, simplified"

I you are going to work further with it keep it simple (KISS). In the end you can choose any level of subdivision you want and manipulate with magnets or brush or whatever. Are you working with conforming clothing?

"PropViewer doesn't change the number of vertices and its position"

So sad, because that is what I want.

Finaliy, UV map.

It is better to work piece by piece instead of taking on the whole mesh at once. An good work flow is to make selections of all the UV islands, and then retopoligize them one by one. So the UV maps are maintained.

Quote - "PropViewer doesn't change the number of vertices and its position"

So sad, because that is what I want.

You have requested a tri to quad converter and this what PropViewer does, but this is not you want. You need something to do remeshing as decimation, simplification, gridification, etc and not conversion of tris to quads. If the final mesh has trinagles or quads is the less important thing. In most cases all the quads will be converted to triangles at rendering time.

Quote - It is better to work piece by piece instead of taking on the whole mesh at once.

This is correct. Any mesh processing method will fail if your mesh is not two-manifold. In your jacket there is a button that will complicate all, you must sepparate the button from the cloth. Sepparate as two groups or slit into two meshes and process each group/mesh alone.

Some remeshing methods also requires that the mesh cannot intersect itself.

Quote - It is better to work piece by piece instead of taking on the whole mesh at once. An good work flow is to make selections of all the UV islands, and then retopoligize them one by one. So the UV maps are maintained.

UVs should always be done after retop:

http://i54.tinypic.com/2md2zdl.jpg

Attached Link: http://www.3d-coat.com/

"You need something to do remeshing as decimation, simplification, gridification, etc and not conversion of tris to quads."

True, exactly so, to use as a BASE to build further upon. I thought that was obvious since we are in the Poser forum.

"If the final mesh has trinagles or quads is the less important thing"

NOT true, the mesh must be totally free from tris, ngons, concaves, collinears, degenerate facets of any form or shape whatsoever and be orderly (grid). Any vendor of conforming clothing free or commercial knows this.

Edit: If not these prerequists are fulfilled, it can be compared to building the house on a fondation of clay.

"UVs should always be done after retop"

True, after every adorment, belt, pockets, harness, sholderpads, etc etc + subdivison and final tweaking of magnets and brushes are done. THEN you can do the UV map but if you have done what I suggested and all the selections are intact it can be done in 5 min.

So post a pic of your retop's UVs then and we can compare...

Ok, here it is. The triangle version had UV map already when I posted it so what shall we compare?

Here's a thought - since it's a shirt, why not cut along the natural seams instead of making odd ones? It would probably lend itself better to the over all appearance once textured. Just my opinion though. Are you using a pelt mapping UV app or are you using basic UV functions like planar and that sort?

Is that your final UV map?

No I mean put a basic texture on it so we can see how the retop version looks with the UVs it has. Because the mesh you posted earlier had serious problems with it's UVs, as can be seen here (click for bigger):

I have nightmares when I see UV maps like that. Texturing becomes an exercise is torturous futility, well anything besides a basic colour fill.   Sorry, just call em as I see em.

"Is that your final UV map?"

Laurie, I thought you had decided to be nice friday one day in the week?

This is just a scrap figure made for the discussion you may not have noticed but half the arm is gone..

you never stated this was a scrap figure. (I checked back on your posts - remember we are not mind readers)

Quote - "Is that your final UV map?"

Laurie, I thought you had decided to be nice friday one day in the week?

This is just a scrap figure made for the discussion you may not have noticed but half the arm is gone..

 

Nice is overrated, honest is better.

Mind, had you mentioned that it was a scrap piece, people might be a little more understanding about obvious shortcomings.

But, still, for the 'scrap model' is that the final map?

Do I really have to be nice? Damn....

Laurie

Quote - Do I really have to be nice? Damn....

Laurie

Nah. some of us love you for your periodically grumpy self.

ghonma, "No I mean put a basic texture"

Ok I do it tommorow. Next time phrase your words more exactly!

I meant this discussion to general, about the best way to retop. Not about specific cloth items. If LaurieA (or anyone else) thinks she or he can make a better UV map let us make a challenge, meanwhile let's keep to business.

Quote - > Quote - Do I really have to be nice? Damn....

Laurie

Nah. some of us love you for your periodically grumpy self.

Awwww....

LOL

It's fine if it's a scrap figure, i'm more interested in how you got rid of the stretch artifacts in the original mesh (you can see them in the wavy lines in the check pattern) I got rid of them by redoing the UVs on the retop mesh, but if there's an easier/faster way, it would be useful to know...

EDIT: Fine, in careful phrasing then, you stated that you could get UVs on your retop mesh in 5 minutes by following your method. I'm interested in knowing what the method is and what the UVs you get this way (by which I mean a texture mapped on those UVs as well as the UV map atlas itself) look like. And then compare it with the workflow people usually follow, which is to do the UVs, from scratch, after retops.

Is that clearer now ?

LaurieA, " had you mentioned that it was a scrap piece"

I should not have to mention that in a discussion. But if you want, I can download some of your free stuff and make a review..

Quote - LaurieA, " had you mentioned that it was a scrap piece"

I should not have to mention that in a discussion. But if you want, I can download some of your free stuff and make a review..

 

 

Er, that was not me that said that vintorix. Read again. I can understand how you thought it was me, but waddn't.

OH, and if you'd like to download my freebies and make a review feel free. I've never said my stuff was awesome or marketed it that way. But if you wanna be a jerk, go ahead.

Laurie

ok everyone, we're mind readers since Vintorix does not want to simply make things easier for us by telling us things..

LaurieA, "But if you wanna be a jerk, go ahead."

No it was not you who said it, my fault! :)