step By step SPEED UP THE RETOPOLOGY PROCESS IN MAYA

01 IMPORT and set your reference Mesh to ‘Live’

Before we can start our retopology process our first step is to import our mesh and set it to Live. Head over to File>import and import in your high-res mesh, normally an OBJ file. Now select the object and go to Modify>make Live. Your mesh will then turn a dark green colour, indicating that this object is now ‘Live’ and new geometry can be snapped to it.

02 BUILD up your Mesh In LOGICAL Parts

Now that we have our reference mesh prepared, we can start building our new geometry. Begin by going to Mesh Tools>quad Draw. Now we start the key part of this process, to build up the new mesh in logical parts. You can see here with the head that I have broken it into the areas that are going to deform. Approaching it this way tasks the viewport less and allows for a smoother experience.

03 Make sure your edge numbers Match

Once we have finished retopologising each section of our mesh, we now have to check that our edge numbers match before combining the mesh together. You can see in our image that the dotted lines represent matching edges, so we know these will merge seamlessly. Take your time to check the edge numbers match in order to reduce the need to fix anything later on.

04 COMBINE and Merge Points to finalise Mesh

With our edge numbers checked, we can now select all the parts of our mesh before going to Mesh>combine. With the mesh now once piece we need to merge all of the open vertices, most commonly using the Target Weld tool from the Modelling Toolkit, or by selecting the desired vertices and choosing Edit Mesh>merge. Once all points are merged, we now have our final retopologised mesh.