-Did you choose Quad Topo for your level to fortify the mesh,thereby allowing the normals to work properly or is there another answer?
Of course, quad. Quad is basically what tillable texture, which I've used, is based on. I have applied a uv map for each quad, which allows me to use even a single texture for entire mesh; quad is definitely the only solution here. Right now, there are some triangles in the mesh [the leftovers after retopology], which I'm fixing from time to time. It's definitely time consuming, but the work leads to the great results which means a zero [or minimum] texture distortion when no triangles are left. To make this short, triangle is my worst enemy as it means a complete texture distortion and ruins the looks.
Do you retopo your objects strictly in Zbrush?
For this map, yes, I've used ZBrush. But I'm familiar and with 3DSMax retopo tools, however, I just wanted to remember/study more about ZBrush newiest retopo tools, so ZBrush was the tool for this case. I'm very keen on trying other retopo tools such as 'retopo-gun' as I've heard it being very nice and user friendly.
What'ya use for texturing?I know there's plenty out there like Mari,Photoshop,PolyPainting,etc,but I guess I'm just studying people atm.
I've tried 'Polypainting' back in the days of 2008 or 2009, however, I didn't like it much. I'm one those fanatics, who believe, that using third party programs are not very sufficient, when most of the workflow can be maintained by using the standard tools, which can give you the same results. Unless we are speaking of procedural approaches, for which I've used "Filter Forge" in order to generate tillable textures [in this case - Buu's mesh textures]. I use photoshop for some areas, yes [you should consider that photoshop has polypainting now, which can be accessed by importing a mesh as *.obj format] I still don't understand why people keep asking/are talking about polypainting. I believe, that such third party software as 'Polypainting' is not worthy the money in the current market, where most of the software now includes polypainting features also. I'm not sure how far they got now, because I haven't checked it for years, so I'm not telling you not to use it, but you can replace Polypainting these days even with a simple 3D editor [e.g. even 3DSMax now has a polypainting feature], ZBrush has an advanced polypainting features. So I hope that answers to your question.
What's your end goal for poly count?
Don't know. Maybe 60 000?
Are you going to bake your AO into the maps,rely on SSAO(I don't know if it's implemented in the current engine) or just not have it at all?
AO - no, since the mesh uses a single 128x128 [or was it 256x256] diffuse/normal textures, which is tillable, so AO wouldn't be so sufficient, since it's more global pre-rendered map (then tillable), but I believe that the results I am looking forward can be achieved with diffuse,normals, bump and SSS[which they sadly don't have if I am correct].
SSAO is quite different story -- for one, I don't think it's needed, but I'd be glad seeing haze shader in-action instead of SSAO, as it is exactly what I want.
P.S,have you tried the Xoliul 2.0 shaders yet?They're free and give some pretty accurate illustrations within Max's viewports.
I haven't tried it. I might have an eye on it, but I believe it will be another third party software which will give free, but messed up shaders with inappropriate rendering methods. I'd rather get 'marmoset' engine for rendering purposes as I've seen many artists using with showing some eye-candy results.