Virtual Trajectories
Retopologizing
It took me about 2 days in total to retopologize my model completely, before going into this I have asked around for opinions on what would be the best way to approach this task. Firstly I spoke with Anna Stachiari, who suggested I try mirroring the model because it will save time and it would be much easier to retopologize only one half of the character since my character didn’t have any particular differences on each side and did not require any additional detail. So this is what I did. It paid off in the end because currently, I have a model with pretty good topology and it now will be easier to rig and make UVs. Another great tip that Anna gave me was looking at topology maps and because I don’t necessarily have a human-like model some parts of it like eyes or toes could benefit from a human topology map, for the nose I found a teddy bear topology map which was the closes in looking alike. For the body, I mainly focused on bigger built models like fighting characters with muscles and or obese human models as well as some bear models. To start retopologizing I watched a couple of youtube videos on the subject matter and learned about the quad draw tool, I also followed the basic rundown of the retopologizing tutorial by Kelvin which helped me grasp the concept of the process. After I made the mesh life and started drawing quads I found it very calming and enjoyed myself. If I had more time on my hands I would retopologize for hours, for the future of this model I will perfect the topology to the best it can be. Before I retopologized I tried the shortcuts like rebuilding mesh and automatic retopologizing in Maya, but they did not do the model any justice sadly. So I had to do it manually, which I do not regret for a moment. After I was done with the model it really shows the polygons, but I decided to make stylistic choice and not smooth the mesh because it fits the character more in my opinion and the smooth mesh looked a bit toyish, which I did not like.
