Hello! I need your help)
I pasted in so much geometry that I got over 2.7 million faces. Blender freezes very much.. Applied Desimate twice to somehow work. But all the smoothness has disappeared, and it is also not possible to smooth out (up to the previous level). I kept both versions - before and after the modifier. Please advise if I can still fix the work?
After the second modifier, I got 180,000 faces:
P.S . Kent, thank you for the great course. I really liked it, I hope I can put it into practice :)
I haven't gone through the course, but you can kind of fake smoothness if you right click and select Shade Smooth on the object. I think the point of this exercise is to not get it completely absolutely smooth, but to get it smooth enough.
Try using the Simplify Brush to only reduce the amount of Vertices in areas where there is not a lot of detail. That together with Shade Smooth, like silentheart said should help.
silentheart00, spikeyxxx thank you!)
It worked! I applied Simplify to the entire surface, after which I applied Smoothing (with Shift) - and at the same time even reduced the geometry! Hurrah)
Is there a general recipe for avoiding too much geometry? Or do I still need to periodically apply, for example, Desimate and Simplify?
Setting certain Detail Size thresholds can help, e.g. only using X size for big details, X size for medium details, and not going below X size for small details. How close you are to the object can also have an effect on how much detail is added, but I'm pretty sure you can change that setting somewhere if you like that kind of workflow instead. A general rule I follow is to increase geometry in an area if I cannot achieve the results I want at the settings I have, but then change them back when I'm not working in a detailed area.
Excellent advice from spikeyxxx and silentheart00 👌
Is there a general recipe for avoiding too much geometry?
Like silentheart suggested, I usually stick to 10px relative detail size for very basic block out. Then go to 7px for medium details and 3-5 px for the finest details. Often this means I use 10 px maybe 20% of the time, 7px 70% of the time and 3-5 pixels 10% of the time or less. Of course these values are based on relative detail size which is the default in Blender's sculpt mode. As you get more comfortable you may try the other detail size modes and prefer them which will require their own unique values.
But as you're discovering the process is not linear or simple. There's a lot of different factors that will affect your polygon count. As you continue sculpting your eye will start to care less about the polygonal faceting on the sculpture; in fact you might even find yourself preferring it for sculpting after a while. It's definitely annoying at the beginning - a big detachment from clay sculpting. But I've learned to prefer it because it's like a pulse on the polycount: If I stop seeing facets then I'm probably going to heavy with poly count (too small a detail size).
In the end the digital sculpting workflow involves consistent maintenance. But the more you do it the more comfortable and natural the process will be, including avoiding pitfalls.
PS: Your sculpt is turning out well btw!