High poly workflow?

[ShadyD]

Hey, I'm about to do my first high poly character in Mudbox :).
But I have a few little questions, If any of you fine artisans could take the time to answer them quickly I would really appreciate that.

First up, Should I do a head bust and sculpt the body seperately and merge them later?
Or should I just use the entire base model with head and sculpt both the head and body simultanously?
If I should make them both seperate, how do I go about merging them later on?

Thanks!

[Deto]

I'd suggest going with whole model. Else you're almost bound on getting seams where head and body connects as your neck isn't exactly a tube.. I'd rather sculpt them both at the same time. Mudbox has nice feature of 'sculpting' one area at a time in high poly to give you better control and speed especially on older computers.

http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/mudbox/mudboxworkflow/index.html

This is a good tutorial on mudbox sculpting, has some very nice things. Its for maya -> Mudbox., but most are true for 3DsMAX too :)

[ShadyD]

Alright Thanks!

[ShadyD]

Another question has popped up in my chaotic mind.

What is the best way to handle a character with clothing/armor?
Make a base of it's body and armor seperately or
keep em attached to eachother?
Or should I keep them seperated but import them together as layers in Mudbox?

Thanks in advance!

[Marcus Dublin]

When it comes to Armor I like to keep them separate this way I can focus one aspect of the model at a time. This is especially true if the armor is hard surfaced, I pretty much push the armor high poly in my modeling app and then touch it up in Mudbox or Zbrush. You can develop a work flow of importing them as layers to see how things are matching up, of course this depends on what your system can handle at any given time. By the way this approach varies depending on what you consider armor, be it a hulking space marine suit or sleek form fitting stuff. If it’s form fitting them you may want to experiment by having it attached. Good luck ShadyD!

[ShadyD]

Thanks! I geuss i'll jsut have to develop my own workflow :). Thanks again!

[East]

First up, Should I do a head bust and sculpt the body seperately and merge them later?
I think that probably depends on the concept. If you're making a character with a bare upper body, separating them might give you seams. However, if you're using ZBrush there's good tools to "merge" two objects. Think of it as taking two pieces of clay, pushing them together, and then lightly just rub at the seams. It will essentially still be two objects, but it will appear merged. Still, adding fine detail across the two can sometimes be difficult.

Then again, if your concept is, say, a guy in a piece of armour, with the head sticking up from a collar, I'd probably just do them separately for better control, as I wouldn't have to worry about seams.

Thanks! I geuss i'll jsut have to develop my own workflow :)
That's pretty much how we all end up doing it. You can only take advice so far, in the end, you just have to find your own way, with a bit of guidance. Good luck :)