Got heart!

I've been pushing my 3D skills to the limit trying to expand on the basics I learned from school.  The objective for this particular project is to create an animation of a pumping heart.  I have always been fascinated by the heart and thought it would be a lot of fun.

I wanted something that looked organic and real not stiff and cubed.  To give me that organic quality I turned to Pixologic's Sculptris. It is a free software and very fluid and comfortable to sculpt in.  Although Sculptris was new to me and it took a little work, sculpting is not and I am happy with what I was able to create using anatomical references.

It was easy to get it into a 3D software program such as Cinema 4D or Blender, however the mesh was too dense.  This would be considered a high polygon model.  To create an animation I need to get a low poly count.  That process, creating a low poly count model from a high poly count object is called Retopologizing.  And that is what I had to learn to do.  I have mostly been working in blender although in school we learned to use Cinema 4D.   

 Retopologizing is not particularly difficult but it takes a little time.  After finishing, however, I realized in order to retain the fine detail in the high poly model I need to UV unwrap it and bake it into the low poly model.  This is where things have become very challenging.  The problem with UV unwrapping my Sculptris model is it's so dense it is difficult to create seams, where the model will break to unfold into a 2D flat image.  I think I need to bring in the heart in three different parts, the ventricles can come in as one piece, and the Aortas as separate pieces.  Then the two great vessels, the Aortic Arch and the Pulmonary Trunk, as separate parts as well.  

  So my great challenge is to go back and bring the parts in separately, UV unwrap each piece and then I'll be about ready to create my animation.

I have also been playing with lights and materials.  So I took a a picture of the heart in Blender.