1. #1
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    Default Thoroughly demoralised.

    I just spent the entire day learning how to use Cycles renderer in Blender only to have it crash when I went to save the (1hr+) render to an image file. Then I had my first attempt at retopoing my Rembrandt model.
    The results? Utter bollocks.
    There surely must be a better way to retopo than drawing a bazillion planes and ending up with a spiky stringy mess.
    Please tell me there is.
    Please tell me I've missed something really obvious that makes the whole thing really simple.
    Please.

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    (Attempts not to laugh. Fails. ) Sorry. it's the recognition.

    I've lost count of the number of times I've wanted to throw my computer through a window, then kick a heap of kittens because of the pure frustrations of this 3d digital art nonsense. I spend half my life trawling the web for the answers to the most basic questions about doing things in Blender.

    Cycles crashing does surprise me. I've found it pretty stable. What the hell were you trying to render? Just your Rembrandt? How many samples were you using? How many faces did your retopology have? Did you do it in Blender? What do you mean by a bazillion planes? The point of retopology is to simplify the mesh. (Says I who is absolutely useless at it and does anything he can to avoid retopologizing.)

    And, most important question of all: where the hell are you from? I was convinced you came from the US, deep south, because of your music. It sounds very authentic. But "bollocks"? Don't tell me you are from Wolverhampton or something.

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    Close! I'm from Birmingham, but I moved to Kent about six months back. Are you from those parts?

    The weird thing was that the render would complete, but when I pressed F3 to save it as an image it would ask me for a save location and name for the file and as soon as I press the save button it would crash to desktop without saving the file.
    I think I've got to the root of it - it seems to be a problem with saving TIFFs.
    I've just tried saving to a PNG at the same size, and it works fine.
    The retopo was a complete clusterf### though. I just can't find a video that explains it. I found one where the guy explains quite clearly how to start, but that's it - nothing about how to tessellate the planes into one coherent mesh.
    I could spend more time trying but I really wanted to use it for an exhibition I'm part of and the deadine for submission is 30th June.
    My plan was for a wireframe going into a full sculpt, but you just can't do it in cycles unless you have retopoed and without re-topo in Blender the mesh is too complex to pick out in places.
    I also tried a cheating way - I duplicated my mesh in place, then scaled it globally so it completely enveloped my original, put a heavy Decimate modifier on it until it was down to about 6000 polygons (down from 340,000+). I then set a subdivision surface modifier and a shrink wrap modifier on it with my original mesh as the target.. I thought this would be a clever way of avoiding extruding a cage around my sculpt.
    It sort of worked, in that I ended up with what looked like Rembrandt covered in chewing gum.
    Oh well, back to the drawing board...

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    Nay lad, I'm from't frosty North. Wish is was frosty, it's humid as hell here at the moment.

    There is a difference between save image and save as image, you know. It's the latter that you want I think. Believe me, I've tried every way round the retopo route, including the shrink wrap method. I've attempted a few times to retopo in Blender, all ending in disaster. I once got 3/4 of the way through then suddenly thought 'life's too short for this s***!' and closed Blender. Then wished I hadn't. Lol.

    I bought 3D coat because it autotopologizes, and the results for a detailed mesh are really - crap. When I do it they are anyway.

    I'm unsure why you want to retopo it. if it's to get the poly count down then decimate and bake the textures from the high poly model. Or even better, use the reduce brush in Sculptris on your Rembrandt and save as a low poly version, then ship into Blender and bake onto it.

    You mention the wireframe thing. Can you not just draw a wireframe on a 2D image of it? Massive cheat, I know. Or draw one on in Blender with the grease pencil tool which applies it in 3D over the model? I've probably got the wrong end of the stick.

    As for rendering, I don't go any higher than 300 samples usually. That does me for most purposes.

    I'm sorry I'm not more help. Not my favourite subject.

    I was just thinking, if you could send me a copy of your Rembrandt, I could have a crack at it and send you it back. Don't expect too much though, I hate the damned process as much as you do, but at least we could both be having a go.

  5. #5

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    That's a really kind offer Dreamz - I'm more than happy to send it to you if you want to have a crack at it, as I'm so far thinking that it's just too complex to do.
    However, I managed to get a full size wireframe render using the blander renderer and a solid render using Cycles so I've managed to getmy exhibition piece sorted - here it is:




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    Default Wow!

    That is a beautiful thing! Well done you! It looks really impressive.

    If the result serves the purpose you were after then there's no need for me to have a go, I offered because you are against the clock, not because I was eager. Lol.

    This is the sort of thing I meant by cheating, but I think yours looks great as it is.



    I've not used that wireframe method that you've used before, it looks so cool. Is it the viewport wireframe or the modifier?

  7. #7

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    Thank you, and I appreciate the offer.
    I did a similar "cheating" hand-drawn wireframe on another piece - just photoshop, no 3D or sculpting:

    but it took me so long that I thought "I'll just do it in Blender - it'll take seconds!"
    Lol - I was so very, very wrong.

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    You certainly were. Have you tried the wireframe method in the modifiers section of Blender? I haven't - I've a feeling it might crash with high-tri sculpts.

    That image looks fantastic. My Rembrandt cheat was just this overlayed in Photoshop and tweaked with the warp tool.


    Took seconds, but it doesn't come close to looking as cool as your Kate Moss (if that's who it is).

    Damn it, I've just thought.....why don't you use an image like the one above as a texture on your mesh. Do you know what I mean?

  9. #9

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    The wireframe I used for Rembrandt was from the material properties:
    Just select "Wire" instead of "Surface".


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    It was indeed Kate Moss - well spotted.
    I'll have to take a look at the wireframe modifier.
    Cheers dreamz

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    This one.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Ooooh, it didn't like that at all. Crashed to desktop when I started to render - even on a small test size.
    My model is just too complex I think.
    Time to upgrade my computer I imagine.

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    Default Fake Wireframe.

    I've just quickly put a dense tri head mesh of mine into Blender and used a wireframe image from the web over it as a UV texture using project from view. You can even have it standing out or sunken in relief by using it as a bump map (ticking the normals box) too. Obviously I've rushed this but I'm sure the results could look cool. I don't know why I didn't think of it before.


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    Excellent - that has a lot of potential.
    Do you bother painting your sculpts before you take them to blender?
    Or, to phrase it better - should I do so?

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    Always. I can't get into Blender's texture painting. Have you not painted in Sculptris yet?

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