Then, I think your base mesh is not properly planned. In the gaming environment (as far asi i’ve read) , there should be 2 meshes: One triangulated, and one quad-ed, no need for the first be a mod of the second.
The rule of thumb is “Make the silouethe look good, otherwise, no quantity of maps will bring life to your character”
This mesh has only 800 triangles, but the silouethe and the normal maps make it appear as a higher res mesh.
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Gears of war - Main character : marcus fenix, around 7,500 poly, dominic santiago, around 6,000 poly, a locust: 5,000 poly… I’m not sure about those polycounts, but I think I’ve read them somewhere…
The easiest thing you can do is:
1.- Sculpt, not worrying about anything.
2.- Retopo your sculpt (you can do it in zbrush)
3.- UV unwrap your model, should do it in maya, 3ds max, blender, xsi… NO automatic mapping :lol:
4.- Export a hires and a lowres model, and project the hires into the lowres maya can do it (but not with a million polys), max too (around 3 mill. poly), or you can use xNormal (no poly limit)
How it is done (As far as I’ve read):
1.- Create a quad and a triangle mesh in maya or max, the triangle mesh should represent the main silouethe with the lowest possible polycount, while the quad mesh should make the same regardless the polycount.
Uv-unwrap the triangle mesh
2.- Sculpt, polypaint, export hi-res mesh and texture > Diffuse map
3.- Project the hires mesh onto the low res mesh > normal map
4.- Texture details in photoshop (that’s why you shouldn’t Auto uv)
