I think I took care of most of the problems from the body itself, but after reading up and seeing that poles are a problem for normal map generation I thought I’d ask advice now before I spend a lot of time either retopologizing or making UV maps I might have to redo.
Also, I want to eventually animate it in maya, so if anyone can point out any glaring issues with the topology in that regard I’d appreciate it immensely.
I highlighted all the face poles to make it easier to see them.
Not too bad, you can probably reduce the amount of “5 star poles” by reworking the topology though. There are typically about four to six “5 star poles” to a face, several more for the body. Also there are usually about four to six “6 star” poles to a humanoid model (increase that number if you have fingers and toes), but through some trickery you can sometimes avoid those, also typically around the earlobe and the jaw there can be “7 star poles”, “6 star poles” usually end up in places like the armpit and the crotch, gluts or anywhere there is juxtaposed topology emerging from a surface.
Sorry, I forgot this thread completely after I did not get response for a while.
Those are great guidelines to have, though.
I ended up spending some time to retopologize it more thoroughly and I got the whole model down to just seven 5 star poles and 4 triangles on a 2288 face model. The funny thing is that now the ears look worse than before even though there are no more poles on them! And before the ears were basically made of poles, though they hugged the shape of the ear exactly. Oh well.
I guess poles are important and the ones by eyes turned out to be a big problem, but the moral seems to be not to get TOO caught up in stuff like that.
Here is the new topology in case anyone is curious or has crits. I still haven’t gotten him rigged yet so if anyone sees any issues let me know. Only thing that doesn’t look so good in-engine is a protrusion under arm pit that looks kind of crappy. The top of head is a bit sparse in polygons and gives a lumpy outline, but it should be covered with hair or helmet most of the time.
I personally don’t think poles are all that big of a deal- it’s more where they’re located. Have a look at this thread if you haven’t already seen it:
http://www.subdivisionmodeling.com/forums/showthread.php?t=907