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4: Clean Retopology

Facial Retopology - Creases & Tweaking

5th March 2020

info License: CC-BY
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Published by

Julien Kaspar

This is the last of 3 videos on retopologizing the face in practice. In this lesson finalise the retopology by adding additional proximity loops to highlight primary & secondary creases and improve support the curvature and deformations of the object. In the end the clean retopology should looks as close as possible to the original sculpt.

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14 Comments

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ktyjust

17th June 2021 - 01:00

Thank you, your tutorials are saving me :D! I just wanted to ask you if you'd also remesh a nose piercing and magical stones in the forehead into the face mesh or would you mesh it seperately?

Julien Kaspar

17th June 2021 - 10:49

@ktyjust You're welcome! I would pretty much always make it a separate mesh.

Spencer Price

14th October 2020 - 05:42

Hey, Julien. Got another question for ya when I use the relaxed brush and snake hook brush in sculpt mode the shrink wrap modifier keeps the mesh tight to the object I'm sculpting on, but when I go back to edit mode all the vertices are off of the sculpt. Am I doing this wrong, and does it even matter if my object and Sculpt mode show the faces the way I like?

Thanks.

Retopology.jpg

Julien Kaspar

14th October 2020 - 12:12

*@Spencer Price* It's important to understand that the modifiers are not actually changing the geometry that you see in edit mode. Only once you apply a modifier does it truly appear in the mesh. In sculpt mode you will generally work with a preview that the shrinkwrap is giving you, just like in object mode.

Davide Prati

26th November 2020 - 17:21

Thies Grünewald

2nd February 2021 - 11:18

First of all, thank you for sharing your knowledge! This was a very helpful and great in depth-tutorial. One more question: After finishing the retopo, i realized that my edgeflow is incorrect, for example one edge goes from the middle of the ear to the tip of the head. Will there be serious problems during animation when the edge flow is not 100% perfect? :O

Julien Kaspar

2nd February 2021 - 12:51

@thies91088 Loops not being closed into themselves happens a lot. As long as the general flow of the edges is ok the animators won't really mind. Having perfect patches and loops is mostly useful for rigging and selecting the patches easily. The cleaner it is the easier the rigging process will be. But even a rough retopology can be rigged in the end.

Thies Grünewald

2nd February 2021 - 14:36

@Julien Kaspar : Thank you very much!

sulemandawood911

10th July 2021 - 09:37

Hi, I'm kinda confused. Will the shapekeys be somehow transferred to this one or do I have to do them again?

Julien Kaspar

12th July 2021 - 11:22

@sulemandawood911 No and no. This retopology will be used for the final rigging and animation. The one we did before is only for some quick test sculpting and will not hold up for any detailed facial animation. The facial sculpts are meant as a reference for the retopology and animation. They won't be used in the end for anything else.

Mejjay

18th January 2022 - 01:49

@Julien Kaspar  How would the steps mentioned in this video differ with a slightly different workflow, e.g., 1) basic sculpt, 2) retopology, 3) add multi-resolution mod to bake basic sculpt's details, 4) increase resolution of multi-res mod as needed to complete a detailed sculpt?

Julien Kaspar

18th January 2022 - 09:11

@Mejjay That's a great question! For that workflow you would need to get very evenly sized quads (all sides ideally the same length) and the least amount of poles as possible. That way you can subdivide the mesh and it will have the same resolution everywhere and no visible stretching. That sort of surface is very easy to sculpt on and you would add details by sculpting them on the highest subdivisions.

The retopology I'm showing in these videos is trying to use the fewest amount of quads with all of the important details like creases and hard edges already modeled in. This is very hard to sculpt on when subdividing but it's ok since you won't need a multires modifier to get those details in there anymore.

Mejjay

22nd January 2022 - 00:15

@Julien Kaspar That's very helpful. I'll try my hand at both workflows to get a good feel for them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like the retopology workflow you're presenting is more advanced, like a step up from when using the multires mod. That isn't to say that getting all even quads and very minimal poles is something to laugh at. It just feels like accounting for primary and secondary creases takes it even further. A true master of the craft, you know?

Julien Kaspar

24th January 2022 - 12:26

@Mejjay Thanks! It's true that these tutorials are a bit more advanced. They are not what your would need for sculpting. This is to get the highest possible quality for rigging & animation.