How can I clean up this mesh?

MimicMolly

This question practically feels extremely off-topic because most threads here are talking about using DS content in Blender. Whereas I'm trying to make something in Blender so I can hopefully use it in DAZ Studio. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll find a similar helmet made by a competent person, so I have to do it myself.

I'm a newbie, and I'm trying to clean up this mesh I sculpted in 3DCoat. I don't know the correct terminology, but I'm trying to connect the "dots" and straighten them out. I've already un-subdivided this to where I'm happy with it.

My questions are as follows.

• How do I add new dots and those lines? (I know that if I could add them in, then I'd have an easier time doing this clean up.)
• If not, how can I "shrink wrap" a subdivided cube primitive and start over that way? And how would I delete the old mesh because Blender doesn't seem to separate meshes easily? Is it even possible?

I'm using Blender 3.1.2, since Steam seems to update to the latest version (as of this post). I tried to look at the Blender documentation, particularly the section on Retopology, but I don't even know where that "Properties" panel it mentioned is at. :/

Richard Haseltine

3D Coat is good at retopology, why not use that before sending the model over to Blender (or directly to DS)?

MimicMolly

Richard Haseltine said:

3D Coat is good at retopology, why not use that before sending the model over to Blender (or directly to DS)?

Blender runs better on my laptop than 3DCoat, and is more stable.. I tried to send this mesh back to 3DCoat, with the bottom part removed as shown in the screenshot, but after finally figuring out how to convert it back to be maleable in 3DCoat, and attempting to add more "clay" to it, 3DCoat crashed. (I prefer to paint with 3DCoat, but even that becomes unpredictable at a certain resolution.)

WendyLuvsCatz

doesn't 3Dcoat have several modes such as GPU or CPU? I only had a short trial years ago but recall that feature.

 

MimicMolly

WendyLuvsCatz said:

doesn't 3Dcoat have several modes such as GPU or CPU? I only had a short trial years ago but recall that feature.

 

I wouldn't know. It's something that I'd have to look into later, perhaps tomorrow, if I'm not busy. I got 3DCoat mostly for texture painting, and it does a good job at that. For making usable mesh, it gets tricky; unless I want an object with the approximate proportions as a drawing reference but not something like a complete, polished illustration render.

juvesatriani

There is Paid addon but it offer 30 Days trial as long for non commercial use , google it quad remesher

Padone

I agree with Richard in general your best option is to use the retopology tools in 3d coat. That is, sculpting is only a part of the process, you need to retopology before exporting. Blender also has tools for retopology you can google "blender retopology", but they're not so good imo.

MimicMolly

juvesatriani said:

There is Paid addon but it offer 30 Days trial as long for non commercial use , google it quad remesher

Oof. I usually avoid non-commercial licenses, because I'll never know if I'll need to make money off my art someday. (I use a full license of 3DCoat because I love it for painting.) Since it seems pretty clear that Blender is unusable based on the "go back and use 3DCoat" replies for my project, probably not worth my time trying this.

Thank you. This might come in handy later, but not right now.

MimicMolly

Padone said:

I agree with Richard in general your best option is to use the retopology tools in 3d coat. That is, sculpting is only a part of the process, you need to retopology before exporting. Blender also has tools for retopology you can google "blender retopology", but they're not so good imo.

That's what I did before even posting my question, and nothing really helped. I just don't like the triangular mesh 3DCoat (and Sculptris) make. But I can't even get Blender to do what I want, besides deleting parts of the mesh, even though its meshes are cleaner looking right off the bat than whatever I sculpted elsewhere.

WendyLuvsCatz

I am surprised 3Dcoat does not do what Zremesher does in Zbrush, Marvelous Designer aparently also has a remeshing function.

Zremeshing is probably the main thing besides polypainting I use Zbrush for.

There is a free retopology app but I forget it's name

it was not the one mentioned here https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/66463/free-retopology-software

edit, instant meshes, I never had much luck using it though

https://www.3dart.it/en/free-auto-retopology-with-instant-meshes/

MimicMolly

WendyLuvsCatz said:

I am surprised 3Dcoat does not do what Zremesher does in Zbrush, Marvelous Designer aparently also has a remeshing function.

Zremeshing is probably the main thing besides polypainting I use Zbrush for.

There is a free retopology app but I forget it's name

it was not the one mentioned here https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/66463/free-retopology-software

edit, instant meshes, I never had much luck using it though

https://www.3dart.it/en/free-auto-retopology-with-instant-meshes/

That forum post one seems more like what I actually want to do. I want to sculpt my helmet with more detail, before I export it. I don't care about losing finer details, since I hope to preserve the over all shape before I start adding smaller accessories.

Ascania

Get the free release of RetopoFlow, the go onto YouTube and watch the tutorial videos.

Padone

juvesatriani

it offer free trials because this addon bit expensive for just add on , thats why they want you to try first before buy . This guys also man behind Zremesher in zbrush and  lateley official C4D r26 Remesher .  I fixed more horrible mesh topology than yours with this one 

3WC

That doesn't look like a very hard mesh to just retopo manually, use the shrinkwrap mofifier and snap to surface in blender.

MimicMolly

3WC said:

That doesn't look like a very hard mesh to just retopo manually, use the shrinkwrap mofifier and snap to surface in blender.

But where would I find those in Blender? That's what I want to know.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

juvesatriani said:

There is Paid addon but it offer 30 Days trial as long for non commercial use , google it quad remesher

+1

Quad Remesher is like magic. I haven't figured out how to not mangle the UVs, but for the most part it is click-and-your-model-is-remeshed. When over-contrained, it can create n-gons, but those are just a few and fixable.

3WC

MimicMolly said:

3WC said:

That doesn't look like a very hard mesh to just retopo manually, use the shrinkwrap mofifier and snap to surface in blender.

But where would I find those in Blender? That's what I want to know.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=blender+retopology+tutorial ;

RL_Media

if you want to add more vertices, the keyboard shortcut to make cuts manually is K button, then you can make namual cuts. I have never really had great luck with automatic tools like quad remesher really. There is a free version like quad remesher https://github.com/jayanam/jremesh-tools
 

Retopoflow https://github.com/CGCookie/retopoflow is a good addition that makes manual retopology a lot smoother and easier. Here is that one in action