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Clean (re)topology for hard surface. What’s your workflow?

ZBrush Usage Questions
#1

Hey guys,

so ZBrush has all these amazing tools that will allow us to very quickly build all sorts of hard surface models through the use of DynaMesh and boolean operations. The results look terrific, with almost no effort. The resulting topology and polycount is another matter entirely. Especially when building clean assets meant for use outside of ZBrush.

I am working on a project that requires me to model hundreds of switches, dials, buttons, levers, etc. I can knock them out very quickly in ZBrush, but I then need to turn them into low/medium poly versions with clean topology. The kind you get by old fashioned poly modeling techniques. ie. Straight, clean edge loops, bevelled edges to hold the corners, adequately sized quads, etc. Simple right? Well, I am finding it far from straightforward and much trickier than retopologising an organic mesh.
In the attached screenshot you can see a tentative start at using ZBrush’s Retopology tools, but it is taking more time than I would like and the results won’t be as clean as they should be. So I’m hoping to hear from others out there how they approach such tasks.

Any tips or advise is welcome of course.
Cheers!

Attachments

switch.jpg

#2

I find it tends to go one of two ways for me:


  1. If its something where I can create the full highpoly model in zbrush and I’m using normal maps in the final result, then the topology of the sculpt isn’t important to me since it will just be decimated in the end anyway to keep it in the 1-5million polygon range (I do my baking externally, so I like to keep the obj files a bit lighter).

    2. This tends to mean more focus on the sculpt making it look pretty, and less focus on the lowpoly model since the normal map will handle the bulk of the work.
  2. If I know that the end goal is to have a lower res model that can subdivide cleanly, then I spend less time with zbrush. Instead of focusing on the detail of the sculpt I just aim for the overall volume and any trickier surfaces that zbrush would excel at. Pretty bevels are often left out, or kept very minimal. The result get gets GoZ’d to another program, where I retopologize it. Being able to shrink wrap the topology to the sculpt can help speed things up while keeping the shape that the subdivision requires.