Retopo Before or after

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hey guys,

I would like to know if I did the texture maps on first before doing retopo
Will I still be able to use the maps on the model after retopo?

Im not sure the model Im using right now is going to be my final yet so I wanna make the maps and see if it looks good, if not Ill just redo the model and the maps without wasting effort on the retopo stage.
(Also, the tutorial Im following he did it on a non retopo’ed model* as well, so if possible id like to follow the tutorial closely)

*Or at least…Im pretty sure the model wasnt retopo’ed, because when I opened the obj file the model was detailed with skin pores, how does one check if the model does or doesnt have a normal map and retopo applied?

2

You can do your textures before retopology but then you have to bake those to the new mesh as well. If you’re doing games, Substance is a better texturing tool—you make your high detail mesh and then retopologize/low-poly mesh and bake your normal map details. Then you send the low-poly mesh with the normal map to Substance and do the texturing.

3

I would have to…Im sorry Im not quite sure what you mean

isnt this process the same in any kind of texturing pipeline?

4

If you’re wanting to texture your high-poly mesh in before you retopologize to make your low-poly mesh then you will have to project/bake those textures to your new mesh like you would to create the normal maps.