Hi Dave

Its ok, I manage to reduce my polygon count for that hi-res head (the black man head, the one I actually posted the image of). For the sake of sharing, here's how I did it :-

1. Select the head in object mode
2. Click Mesh-->Reduce
3. Maya complains there are no non-manifold geometry and asks me to cleanup the mesh first
4. I click Mesh --> Cleanup after selecting the mesh object
5. I click Mesh --> Reduce after selecting the mesh object

The mesh polygons are reduced.

This can be done a few times by the way.

NOTE - The face doesn't look as good as the hi-res one but I have to work within my PC limitations!


I UV-d a front and side photo of Sam Worthington / Chris O 'Donnell on to my mesh with Photoshop Liquify and got some weird results like Sam Worthington's been drinking too much or Chris just came out of a bar brawl. Then I realised that the head mesh dimensions has to exactly match the Sam and Chris photo (front and side). Which means I have to modify the black man head mesh a bit to fit Sam / Chris.

In one of the four views, there is a View menu and then Image Plane which allows me to put in the photo as a backdrop as I modify the mesh. How do I make the image plane smaller or make the mesh semi-transparent so I can see both layers just like in Photoshop (without using Layer Editor) ?

If I was good at ZBrush, it would be probably better for me to modify the mesh there.

The other option is to create a NURBS or Polygon plane and attach the front and side image there and scale it accordingly as I work on modifying the mesh to fit Sam's or Chris's photo dimensions.

Any pointers?


P.S >> For Question 1, can anyone else help ?