Intro to Retopology
Before we begin, I want to give a special mention to Principal Character Artist Tom Parker. I don't know Tom, Tom doesn't know me, but I've been following his work for years and years, and he's been an inspiration to me since at least 2012. A lot of the topological flow that I reference in this chapter is based on his Base mesh, which can be found here https://www.artstation.com/artwork/3oyVag.
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As we discussed before, the process of converting a highpoly object into a lowpoly object is called "Retopologization", or "retopo" for short. Truthfully "Retopologization" simply means any creation, modification, or recreation of some existing topology - but in general when anyone says "retopology" in this field, they are almost always referring to the process outlined in this chapter.
The purpose of retopologization is simple - to change an existing topology to achieve something that the original geometry could not facilitate.
This can manifest in several specific examples:
To lower the polygon count of the object
To improve the edge flow (which we may need to do to facilitate animation, for example)
To improve quad layout or quad density (to facilitate easier sculpting or a better concentration of geometry)
To convert scan or scientific topology into otherwise workable artistic topology
To create certain desireable surface normals
etc
To get started, we will be retoplogizing Micheal Angelos David:
Please download the .STL of Micheal Angelos david from the following link.
Make a new Blend File (dedicating a folder to it and suffixing it _001), delete the existing scene objects, and import the STL into that file, like so:
By default, you will not see anything:
But if you expand the side pannel with the "N" hotkey, you will notice some peculiar dimensions:
Recall back to the earlier Scene chapter, where we discussed scale, meters, and centimeters. We established that when we move between programs, we will typically encounter a scale miss match error - this is normal, and to be expected. We established that 100x or 0.01x will almost always be the discrepancy. I want you to set David's head scale to 0.01, 0.01, 0.01, like so:
Apply this, with your CTRL+A menu:
In addition, please position the head so that it mostly faces scene forward, and is mostly center. As this is a marble bust in an asymettric pose, we cannot get this perfect, but mostly fine will be ok for our purposes.
I have set my scene up, like so:
Remember to apply your Location, Rotation, and Scale.
Save your work (incrementally).
You're now ready to begin retopology! Please watch the video series below:
🛑⚠️🚧Content not yet finished 🚧⚠️🛑
Everything below represents notes for Sepha to finish the YouTube vid and article with.
Show the actual retopology process.
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