I’m picturing something where the high-res mesh is there, and as I click on it, I create vertices in a new low-resolution version. These vertices would get their position, UV, normals, and bone weights from the corrosponding high-res mesh. And of course as I snap these low-res points together into triangles, I end up with a low-res mesh that’s already textured and rigged.
None of that seems too hard to me — maybe figuring out the bone weights would be a little tricky, but not too bad. But, alas, it appears that my preferred modeling tool (Cheetah3D) doesn’t have any such function.
I know there are automatic mesh decimators, but I’m not pleased with the quality… I’d rather choose myself where I want the vertices to be (though if the high-res mesh provided some hints, for example by using vertex coloring to indicate local bend angle, that’d be helpful).
Any suggestions? ( @MediaGiant , any chance for something like this in the Mesh Maker toolset?)
ZBrush has some tools that go from automatic to manual and somewhere in-between. It is the best program I can think of to “decimate” a mesh. The Topology brush is the in-between that lets you draw on the high resolution mesh how you want the new projected topology to look.
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Zbrush has been my go-to for this as well for decimation. But Blender, Maya, Topogun, all have nice manual tools to do this too. I think there is a branch called Dark Blender that come with Manu custom tools that fall in line with what you’re looking for.
Most of my rigging / weight experience is in Maya. It has a decent transfer weights tool based off vertex position. Used it to transfer weights between 2 different characters. Needs Polish of course but better than stating with the default skinning. Not sure if Blender has something comparable or not. But I know is weighting tool have seen some development since I last used them.
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Best might be a combination of tools… I absolutely love Z-Remesher though. You can draw topological guides where you want specific edge loops to be and paint different colors for different densities which is great for characters and animated meshes.