Building a new voodoo doll

[Pat]

...at least, they always look like little voodoo dolls, to me :)

I'm building a new base mesh My first one was around 6k and it was alright but I'm trying to reduce polys while avoiding some of the ugly poly mistakes from my first project. My question is, in building the base mesh, is it better to lay out the basic signs of bone and muscle structure or do a simple, soap-carving looking base mesh (like the one you get pre-loaded with Mud) and worry about those structures later? Obviously there are merits to both but I was wondering what you guys have seen from your experiences.

Cheers

Pat

edit;

Um... I suppose I wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry this wound up in the News forum when I truly meant it to be in the Help forum. Could someone please move this for me? .__.

[Ska-t2]

Hey Pat,

I think it really comes down to preference... Where do you want to spend the most time on the model? If you feel more comfortable doing all of the sculpting of the muscles and bones structures in Mudbox then spend as little time as possible on the base mesh, you can use just the basic shape of a human... (remember you can always re-topo later to get the edge loops and poly layout just right, especialy if you are using a program like Topogun which should be a must have if you are working with Mudbox)

If you are more comfortable in your poly skills, then I would say make the major muscle and bone structures in your base mesh and concentrate on fleshing out the shapes and sculpting in the high detail in Mudbox.

That is one of the great things about Mudbox, you really can go either way with how you want to approach your model. ;)

[Pat]

The argument I've had the most often is whether or not things will deform correctly when they're rigged, which I feel comes down to the experience of the rigger. I don't have the spare cash for a beautiful topology mixer like topogun, right now but before things like Zbrush and Mudbox came to our school, we were training to make models with proper edgeflow for animation and ease of rigging, anyway but I find that one can cheat just a little bit as far as the shapes are concerned.

Thanks for the post, it's a confidence builder for sure! I've switched out of my Senior Project2 class in order to focus on getting myself out there so I have a little bit more time for experimentation. I'll definitely be passing this advice about during my lectures!