Face Retopology Tutorial: Step-by-Step Guide to Perfecting Your 3D Model

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[@wormslag561]

Man I've seen a fair few retop videos but they all seem to show without describing the WHY of it, as you do here, which in my opinion is vital. Thank you, excellent video. Also thank you for reducing my anxiety about triangles! Every triangle I leave feels like a personal failure.

[@juliyanaumova]

Thank you so much!!! Finally I have found a very good lesson about retopo and your explanation is amazing! I am a beginner and it is very important to watch good tutorials. I felt like I didn't understand anything about retopology, but in reality, I was just watching the wrong tutorials. You are the best. Thanks again!

[@AbeLeal3D]

You're very welcome! topology can definitely be tricky and there are multiple ways to do it, this method has worked for me for the past 10 years so i can definitely vouch for it

[@manuellovera7083]

Bro, you're huge, thanks for all the tips and tricks from industry here on KZbin and free, all the best!

[@AbeLeal3D]

Happy to help!

[@poochyboi]

just came from your 3 part tute from the nexttut channel. I'm so friggin glad your did a remaster of that tute and its recent too! heck yea!

[@hernanponce6062]

amazing tutorial! very clear to a hispanic person too

[@AbeLeal3D]

gracias hernan! que bueno que te sirvio!

[@mute_fish]

I wish I had found this tutorial a little earlier. You demystified a lot and have leveled up the way I look at retopology.

[@sviatoslavsol]

It's not for first time that i watch your video, but maaan!!! How awesome to see you! To see your work, to listen how sharp and clear you explaining hard things. You are my number one about explaining. Love you pal!!!

[@AbeLeal3D]

thank you! i am glad you like my teaching style, thanks for the support!

[@fabiomerx]

I have my last exam tomorrow and I think this tutorial just saved me... thanks so much for that amazing video!

[@AbeLeal3D]

Good luck on your exam!

[@wildbrush4445]

hey dude, just wanted to say thanks for all the videos and education you're doing at the moment. Your Zbrush basics video with nexttut was amazing and packed with value. It's great to see you're producing stuff under your own name now and I wish you all the best with the future and can't wait to see where you go with all this.

[@AbeLeal3D]

Thanks for the support my friend! It's always great to hear that people benefit from this content, thank you a lot :)

[@approachingetterath9959]

thanks for the video! the nose is the point at which i always gotta consult some guide, and it usually means i need to redo half the topology cause it's wild how many different valid facial topologies there are, even for the same use case (games, vfx, animation, anime ...). when i look up references, be it video guides or images, it's always a different amount of faces around the eyes and mouth, different loop sets, different solutions. at least that means you don't have wiggle room as long as you follow some basics.

[@cglay9643]

The "conform" thing is exactly what I've been searching for these past two years

[@AbeLeal3D]

@@cglay9643 glad you found it!

[@Manlike_J]

You're a good teacher bro...thanks, i dub thee SENSEI

[@AbeLeal3D]

haha thanks! happy to help!

[@reillydavis5016]

that was super enjoyable to watch, have watched a few on topology, usually super booring or they dont actually know what they are doing lol and the secret made me want to keep watching well done

[@VivekKumarChauhan-bh1kn]

what should I say, the way you explain things is so awesome and easy to understand.

[@theerissarayimphai3371]

Finally, someone explained everything. I mean everything! Thank you very much.

[@dummdummy2085]

This video saved my life for my 3D class

[@IndieDevGael]

Best retopo tutorial I've seen so far!

[@AbeLeal3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@kazukii07]

Your videos are extremely helpful!! Please keep on making tutorials. You are guiding me so much in my 3D Journey! Wish you a lot of luck in your journey as well! :D

[@AbeLeal3D]

Thank you! Will do!

[@shealutz3117]

You're Great Man! Thank you for these videos and for motivating me to continue with every one of them.

[@AbeLeal3D]

Glad you like them!

[@giorgi877]

amazing as always! full of info!

[@Digagz390]

at first doing face retopo it took me hours but with your method I find it easy to finish faster

[@AbeLeal3D]

Thanks! Dont forget to check our full course about animation ready topology - www.abeleal3d.com/courses/TOPO

[@prony5145]

The smooth conform part made me sub man! Best technique ever! Thanks a lot!❤❤

[@AbeLeal3D]

Thanks!

[@krishnakumar1992]

Thankyou for the precious knowledge ❤️❤️❤️

[@fallenangleyohan]

put your keyboard on screen so we can see what you are pressing please and thank you this still helped tho keep it up homie you look just like that other guy that does tutorials for this haha anyway goodnight

[@nhituyet1237]

the secret really worth the hype

[@Phase_waves]

You are a magic man bro, this has helped me out so much ,thank you! I tried following a different tutorial and it kept taking away the details from the face 😭

[@Marc0Lep]

Yeah what the secret ! thanks to share with us !

[@kunal1636]

great video ,thank you so much very educational and informative

[@naijinobobo6627]

thanks for this , not a lot of tutorials include the u turn on the forehead

[@FlashMaster21]

That is just great! Thank you Abe

[@AbeLeal3D]

you are welcome!

[@RyanWeathers3D]

that secret is amazing! thanks

[@KumarsKazemi]

this video really helped me alot

[@vinayakkalburgi9647]

Much needed, Thank u so much Abraham !

[@AbeLeal3D]

Glad it was helpful!

[@davidzarn]

exactly what I needed! Thanks Abe, best teacher!

[@AbeLeal3D]

there you go! thanks for the support!

[@VictorMatheus-nc8dm]

anyone know how to do that final secret in blender??? thanks for the tutorial by the way!

[@_517_]

Quality content 🎃

[@HYZ_Real]

I'm shock I thought retopo is hard but that was Soo cool❤

[@famoboule7269]

man everything was perfect thank you so much

[@AbeLeal3D]

You're welcome!

[@siyanageorgieva7206]

Could you explain how to do the Live Conform in Blender by any chance? If there even is such an option

[@askuare]

i just started your work flow but in blender sorr i dont use maya but thank u very much once again for the details that u taught

[@AbeLeal3D]

Glad I could help! and yes this is universal, it doesnt matter which software this topology will work with any character

[@TataNog]

wish i had seen this video before start my retopology. Thanks so much for this information. Is there a blender version of that tecnic?

[@AbeLeal3D]

yes of course, you can do it with shrinkwrap but there is also a really cool plugin called retopoflow

[@everend_xyz]

Thanks for the secret 🐸 it changed my life ahah for real 💙

[@AbeLeal3D]

glad to hear!

[@coleap7507]

best tutorial!

[@O_rik]

Great tutorial! Thanks!

[@AbeLeal3D]

You're welcome!

[@ДэниХалилов-ъ3м]

My boy❤❤❤

[@seiffahmi3186]

Quality info. Thanks a lot

[@flexa7ron]

Very useful video! I have a question though… Should I do this method on a full character or only with the face and then attach it to the body? I mean, if I smooth the whole character it’s gonna be over-optimized with too many polygons 😅

[@AbeLeal3D]

great question, it depends on the project, but if you keep the body quite low, like lets say only 8 sided cylinders for the arms and boxes for the fingers when you smooth it the resolution will be good, i cover this more in depth in our retopology course, you can check it in our site if you want: www.abeleal3d.com

[@manishpatil1150]

Wow fantastic tutorial

[@MetalHeart0607]

thank you for this great lesson!

[@lauravillamil9043]

Hey amazing video! Someone knows if he has done a video of how to get the rest of the details back? (more wrinkles and so on)

[@AbeLeal3D]

I think he has done it :D Send your question in our discord community help room, will be easier to assist - discord.com/invite/Fcd5BjD7wN

[@yuniorbb879]

How would you apply the secreto weapon using blender?

[@HammerBanger]

That was great. But you know where I am stuck? How do you stitch, weld, or merge the head mesh to the body mesh, when the faces are obviously not matching? I need a higher resolution topo on the head compared to the body. Would be cool to see some of your ideas using Zbrush, or Blender. Thx a bunch for all your great videos, keep rocking.

[@AbeLeal3D]

Great question you pretty much have a lot of points along the stitch area and several trianglea. I actually cover this in chapter 4 of our retopology course

[@HammerBanger]

@@AbeLeal3D cool, I will try to check it out. Is it in Blender or Maya? For Zbrush, how do you apply a simple checker map to see uv distortion?

[@AbeLeal3D]

@@HammerBanger we do the retopology in Topogun but all the principles can be applied on any software. For ZBrush uv you can load in a texture and use the texture mean to project it. But the object needs uvs of course

[@hamidsalami7022]

Nice tutorial. thank you. what about retopoolgy for the body hands and legs?

[@AbeLeal3D]

Great suggestion!

[@rodrimation3867]

Thanks the secret really helped me!!!

[@AbeLeal3D]

Glad I could help!

[@Cuteathon]

Great video! Is there a Blender equivalent to the conform technique?

[@AbeLeal3D]

@@Cuteathon yes you can try the shrinkwrap modifier

[@sergiocabezuelo663]

Thanks a lot !

[@KongMin223]

thanks you so muchhh

[@willsouza1943]

thank you my man

[@ars3849]

Save you all the time. The "secret" at the end is "Make live" the high poly and in the low poly do: mesh/smooth and then mesh/conform. Great video btw. Wish you explained a lot further on the hiring candidates comment, maybe make a video about it.

[@KB-kp2oz]

This guy doesn't hire lol.

[@ars3849]

@@KB-kp2oz its an interesting topic anyways

[@Uriel_Uryl]

I didn't skip, I've watched the entire video, but I'm on blender, idk if you can do this on that I've just started learning 3d.

[@AbeLeal3D]

You will find this useful then - www.abeleal3d.com/courses/blender-weapon-for-games

[@Kuruch11]

Very informative tutorial, but I did run into an issue when using the secret method at the end. My issue is that when I smooth + conform and fixed some of the edges, an error kept popping up on non-manifold triangulation when I try to unfold it for UV unwrapping. I figured out it was non planar faces thats causing it but couldn’t find a solution to fix it due to the numerous non planar faces there is on my model. Smooth on its own doesn’t seem to cause this issue so I’m wondering if that’s a limitation with the conform tool when applied to more complex organic models. Will be thankful if you can share some insight on this as I’m still an intermediate when it comes to 3D modelling

[@AbeLeal3D]

check the symmetry on the object, Maya has a weird bug where it will sometimes add an extra vertex when doing a mirror, go to vertex mode and check the center line to make sure there are no extra vertex

[@Kuruch11]

⁠@@AbeLeal3DTHANK YOU!!! It’s now working without any errors, I might have missed it as I went straight to the the cleanup tool to look for any errors, thought it was the non planar faces at first, but it’s always them sneaky Ngons, much appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏

[@CHIFAN2]

Thank you very much! :) :) :)

[@RachelLosoPao]

Do we use the decimated HighPoly Model for baking when we want to bake the high poly details to the low poly model that we retopo?

[@AbeLeal3D]

Might be. Send your question in our discord community help room - discord.com/invite/Fcd5BjD7wN

[@刘华强-h3b]

so good！！！

[@fahaddevil4188]

Hi can you share the sculpture

[@VishnuSharma-vu3ge]

Sir why you use Maya for retopology instead of zremesher . Is there any problem with zremesher...plzz explain I am newbie...

[@AbeLeal3D]

Yes zemember will sometimes generate undesired spirals and bad deformation topology

[@VishnuSharma-vu3ge]

@@AbeLeal3D thnks sir...♥️

[@codeclipse2151]

When I get to the mirror step the mesh creates a tension point on the chin/back of head with a ton of tris, how do I solve it?

[@AbeLeal3D]

make sure your merge treshold in the mirror option is set to .001 so that only vertex that are on top each other merge

[@codeclipse2151]

@Abe_Leal3D Tried this at multiple threshold points and no success. The half retopologised manually doesn't have vertices that are even that close to each other but the mirror seems to force them together or something.

[@codeclipse2151]

@@AbeLeal3D Nevermind I worked it out, I was confusing offset with merge threshold - thank you

[@Manvjpro204]

can you make a tut for body reto?

[@AbeLeal3D]

Leave request in our discord community so we could take a content note, for livestream Q&A - discord.com/invite/w9GBhyV4wU

[@sushantsuvarna6627]

Ty😊

[@AbeLeal3D]

My pleasure!

[@biriani2855]

Ps1 era? They used a box for the head.

[@arifnbd]

Perfect Retopo video I have ever seen, got to know so many thing like 'tringles" are not as bad as we heard!!! and very clear explanation why and how to start. I was so afraid to Retopo my own character ( my friend does it for me :D )... now, I have courage to step forward and make attempt. Just another request, can you show us how to apply the Normal map into the character after this if I need to put more details that were in my original ZBrush model... That would be very useful, Man... Thank you so much for the all kind of videos you are providing!!!

[@AbeLeal3D]

Thanks a lot for the kind words, happy it helped! I can, just leave request in our discord community livestream Q&A, so we could keep track of it.

[@ak1012010]

Beginner question, is it okay to delete the high poly version?

[@AbeLeal3D]

great question, and the answer is no. You need the high poly version to bake down the details using softwares like substance painter. If you are not going to be doing any bakes then yeah the high poly is no longer useful after retopo

[@Artisttttttttt7]

how you add smoothness or proper flow ?

[@AbeLeal3D]

what do you mean? the proper edgeflow is the one used in the tutorial, once you have it you can do normal or displacement bake to add more details if needed

[@Artisttttttttt7]

Thank u sir ✨

[@shubhamfartade7105]

❤

[@_shanks_06]

Is confirm tool available in blender or topogun?

[@AbeLeal3D]

yes there is a similar option called shrinkwrap, its a modifier, its not exactly the same but it can get you close

[@askuare]

can u plz do the retopo in zbrush just 1 time plzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[@AbeLeal3D]

With zremesher or with zspheres?

[@askuare]

i wasnt expecting a reply like that but i will be really happy to see what ever tool u use thank u very much@@AbeLeal3D

[@24framedavinci13]

Commenting for the algo

[@zenoflixff4230]

Your pc specifications?

[@AbeLeal3D]

64gb ram 3080ti GPU Ryzen 7 5800x

[@xM1nQ]

9:09

[@unknownusrname]

Why is everything in 3D so painful 😭😭😭

[@AnaOctopodiform]

ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ* ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧

[@TheHighFlys]

I cringe at mayas retopo coming from a place like 3DCoat I could never lmfao

[@AbeLeal3D]

Yeah it's not the best, but it does the job. My personal favorite is topogun but the extra price tag can be tough

[@hailSalgado]

I know that in production u have to be as fast as possible with an optimal retop, but damn u could’ve avoided all of thous tris with a better structure 🫠😭

[@AbeLeal3D]

Don't be scared of tri count my friend! Of course optimization is important but a lot of current games are handling this amount or even more! Polys are no longer as critical for performance. Textures are now considered to be a big bottleneck