Tips for working with high poly models

[t_smith5]

Hi

I can no longer use Max or Maya on my PC at the moment, so until I reformat it, I can only use them on my laptop, which isn't as powerful. It's an MSI gaming laptop, but it only has an i7 7700HQ at 2.8GHz, 8GB RAM, and a GTX 1060. I'm also running them off an SSD. However, I can't prep my ZBrush high poly sculpts ready for baking. Such as resetting the pivot point, applying an X-Form, and grouping every piece and zeroing it out in the world space.

I've tried ZRemeshing some of the more bigger pieces, but the overall total is around 40 million, and Max really struggles. It gradually gets slower to the point of being unresponsive and crashes.

Are there any tips I could try to help optimise the high poly meshes to help Max not lag so much?

I don't particularly want to decimate the meshes - I did use that tool in ZBrush when retopologising everything - but it leaves a lot of dings and dents on the surfaces, which seem to get baked to the low poly in Substance Painter. At least, the one I tried did.

[Diffus3d]

Your RAM might be a bit low for some modern CG and is probably the problem, but lucky you that's the only part right now that's easy to find.  Dark times out there right now for PC parts.  I wouldn't dally too long.  You'll have much better luck with 16GB compared to 8. 

For the meanwhile, you have a couple options if you're running out of memory.

• Try setting the objects to Display as Box.  Granted you won't be able to see the parts then individually, but it should free up the memory for you to do your resets and pivots and remove all the lag.  You can still group and all that stuff with no real overhead. 
  
  
• Maybe split them up into different scenes temporarily?  40M polys in 1 scene could be 20M polys in 2 scenes. 
   
• Maybe export it out at 1 subdivision less?  Should be about 10M polys then which is still pretty high res.  
  
  
• Otherwise, why not use Zbrush for that?  It has the Topology brush for high/low baking and for modeling over the surface already.  

Best Regards,