3d is such a versatile artform and it's one that expands in use and purpose on a daily basis. something can be purely sculptural or it can be rigged for animation or used as medical reference etc. In this sense I find that it's hard for me to work when i don't think my work will have an immediate or at least a purpose in the long run.

but 3d being like it is, an artist has to know the purpose of their work ahead of time, has to lay topology out a certain way or keep things quads or lay out a model with very deliberate system depending on what the model is going to be used for. this is typically the buzzkill for me being i'm not terribly bright when it comes to laying out (or even having knowledge of) character topolgy that deforms well, and that's even when it comes to just drawing it at the retopology stage.

so i've been coming up with a system, a modularity device for everything i model so all of the technical/mechanical thinking has been done in advance and whenever i make a new character i can just model freely with no consideration of topology, edge loops or what have you (and i can convince myself they will become assets).

this system involves me making an edgeloop box model i fit around the sculptural model that has been modeled/divided up in such a way that by one subdivision all of the parts have an even edgeflow with edgerows placed in line for deformation. then i vaccume(sp?) form this to the model with projection and boom, all of my models have the same edgeloops and will be weighed/handled the same when it comes to the skinning process but will retain their new sculpted forms and i didn't have to think for a second about whether or not any retopologizing i do from that point forward will have considered these vital loops.

so does anyone else have this sort of obsession with knowing that everything they do will work with everything else they model?

what kind of systems have you crazies come up with?

Yea... lumps of clay are scary....

not sure I follow 100%, could use some pix?

i got to say, I usually am always trying new ways to model to see if theres easier/quicker ways..

One thing I'm playing with at the moment is in blender: 3d sketch the mesh with grease pencil, block out the shapes using metaballs, and retopo in either blender or silo or whatever (prefer silo for retopo). retopo part seperates the edge flow worries from design, and is kind of a relaxing afterthought to the main deal..

that flow mainly relates to chars, havent thought much about quick env production.

ps. I don't think I could give all my models the same topology.. unless you're talking about a basemesh. different amount of detail in different places kind of demands different topo doesn't it?

yeah i suck at drawing in evenly spaced topology and i find math (subdiving) does a much better job at keeping things even than i ever could.



so from this point any retopologizing i do is just to pickup the details of the hi-poly model as the form is already described and animation is accounted for. i also model everything i attach (hands, heads.... parasitic twins?) to have the same number of points of origin as this mesh.

i find this literally saves hours of work for me. i highly recommend it to people who have animation edgeloops they know and love and dont want to bother having to draw it in the same everytime they retopologize a model for use in a game etc.