High poly from low poly steps ?

[Chucky]

How would I go to create a high poly mesh from an existing low poly mesh ? I want to edit a Wc3 model to make it for SC2. Do I need to make it from scratch ?

 

[BlinkBoy]

Not really. I once tried it but was too lazy to finish. The idea is that you weld the vertices and start cutting the model around and adding detail. You may have to remake some meshes and rethink how glows will show in sc2. You may also need to remake some meshes and parts of the unwrap some time. About textures, you may also need to make the textures a bit more serious and increase their resolution with some extra details. Concerning normal maps, you can either make a very detailed high poly version of the model and render it from it, ur use a normal map creator from the texture. About animating, you should remake the unwrap and have some vertices a bit more unbalanced to stretch better.

It's a lot of work at the end, but can really pay off if done correctly.

 

[Chucky]

How about if I export the low poly mesh as obj and start modelling on it in Zbrush or Sculptris, make a normal map from that and that way I could reduce the poly count but still be higher than Wc3 basically ? Wouldn't it look weird modelling something so low poly in a program like that cause from what I saw it automatically re-arranges triangles on the mesh.

 

[NhazUl]

There was a tool called WarForger that could perform subdividion of a mesh or part of a mesh. I do not know if it's still on WC3C where I found it. Basically you select a mesh, part of one or even one face, click on a button called, I think, "divide edge" and the mesh is subdivided. However, I'm not sure how the wrap and the normals turn out, but that is not a problem with most Warcraft 3 editing tools. Also, the newly created vertices lie in the plane of the triangle which contains them.

EDIT: I found the program. It does work, but do not make the mistake to select a whole mesh and hit Divide Edge. Then it tends to divide symmetrical parts of the mesh ina different way, which is... ugly and may cause problems.

 

[BlinkBoy]

How about if I export the low poly mesh as obj and start modelling on it in Zbrush or Sculptris, make a normal map from that and that way I could reduce the poly count but still be higher than Wc3 basically ? Wouldn't it look weird modelling something so low poly in a program like that cause from what I saw it automatically re-arranges triangles on the mesh.

Sadly Sc2 normal maps are very optimized when rendered. So they are not enogh detail. You'll have to edit the normal mesh, anyways.