Retopology A Detailed Guide - What is Retopology & Why Do We Need It?

[@xadrach]

im about to retopo for the first time in my life. pray for me, im diving in

[@xadrach]

Update: I AM STILL RETOPOING. THIS ABSOLUTELY SUCKS.

[@ojonasdev]

Update?

Are you still alive?

[@CASMANWHAT]

🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@coldspark290]

RIP 😔😔

[@Wernimations]

Why do we need retopology? when I was a young lad, I tried sculpting in blender for the first time. I turned on dyntopo because it made stuff look a lot smoother. I used texture brushes and kept going and going and going. Until finally i accidently switched to rendered view....and everything crashed cus of a million vertices

[@billywhitaker6658]

It’s the bane of my art. I adore sculpting, retopo hurts my heart 😔

[@GUMMY_MKII]

well then I'm your Yang

[@UrLocalHazbinAddict]

I do tattoos, and I used to hate doing hands. So I had a boss that would make me do all the hand pieces that came in, now I’m super good at it. Still hate it though lol

[@nallash905]

I've never been listening to a theoretical lecture with this much interest and understanding before. I've leant so much thanks to this video

[@oversalt4713]

In the fourth pillar, you would get an even better deformation if you add a loop cut between the triangulated mesh at the back (between the lines, the edge loop is stopped by the triangles). Really useful for realistic elbows, knees etc

[@bilgenathan7085]

Maybe because of the covid but i hear your voice everyday more than anyone else :) Really like your work and glad we have you.

[@Zeriel00]

WOW! man this is EXCELLENT! I know how to Retopologize in Blender but this is such an obscure topic that gets no attention and Blender makes it extra complicated because a lot of the tools are all over the place and difficult to find so most people just give up. IMO if you use something else and have no confidence in Blender, trust me once you figure it out is absolutely great 9/10 but you need to also use a bit of the sculpting tools such as smooth with options so it doesn't distort the overall shape. I used Maya's Quad Draw, TopoGun and 3D Coat and Blender works just as good, it just needs a complete rework on it's stools/options locations. There needs to be a Retopology workspace with everything easily visible. It also could also use more Retopo specific tools. Basically it's an interface problem. Thanks for this!

[@rocifier]

It's far more common in the 3D Studio Max world to discuss good topology. One of the keys with it is to model using quads from step 1 and you won't really end up with problems, ie. there is no need to "retopologize" later on. You can also get the mesh as far as you want with low polygon, then clone it and sculp the high poly version from there. It's much cleaner than trying to reduce/decimate a high poly sculpt to get your low poly version.

[@a3dadventure79]

thanks so much for this. you covered A LOT, and very rarely did i feel intimidated by it, rather you helped me to feel that "getting good at it" was possible, and entirely probable. i'm taking this slow, and bite-sized, and it's working well. keep up the great work and great service you do for the community!!!

[@SleepyEvoli]

By far the best video I've seen so far and it finally clicked. Might be the first time I actually try a course online. Thank you!

[@aiz.3d]

I've been doing retopology for the past week without even knowing! I felt that all the assets i found online were although good, but they didn't have good topology and had excess topology which increased render times a lot! Using decimate modifier and then doing retopology and then finally adding a subdivision modifier will cut down your render times by a lot!

[@ygsg]

This is highly useful especially for beginners. Thank you

[@Planet_films565]

Agreed

[@mangonauts6464]

Something wasn't clicking with me previously with retopology but this video explained it quite well! Bravo!

[@kalpeshpatil8912]

doing your character creation course and i am glad i can learn from you more for free on youtube .

[@klauszwegert6382]

Its important to note that for animation there is only so much you can do with retopo. Just try to keep every face the same size and do the Rest with skinning. but in film for example very often blend shapes are used.

[@danielstephenson7558]

This is an insanely useful resource! Love these videos! Working through this tutorial set as I keep hitting brick walls with my modelling and I really need to stop being lazy and learn to retopo properly.

[@ErikMurt444]

Thank you Grant, don't know how I'd learn without your videos.

[@Blueberry-rg1ll]

This is a very important thing to learn, great explanation, thanks Grant

[@user-em9su3dd9y]

Whoa, literally was about to search your channel for this exact thing...

[@SianaGearz]

Another important property of quads is that the industry-standard Catmull-Clark subdivision only has desirable properties on quads, it goes lumpy on triangles. There exists Loop subdivision surface, that is better-behaved on triangles (not loop as in a series of edges, but Loop as in Charles Loop), but in turn it doesn't perform well on quads. When quads are subdivided into triangles, they encode a particular bias direction into the mesh, which is not desirable and becomes visible in Loop subdivision. Both of these subdivision schemes were defined i think around late 70s or so. Decades later Loop returned i think with Loop-Stam subdivision which unifies them elegantly, but by that time, the whole industry locked in on Catmull-Clark subdivision due to overall advantages of quad modelling, and introducing any other subdivision scheme would impede interchange and make code sharing a problem, for example the modern GPU-accelerated Catmull-Clark code in Blender comes from Pixar (OpenSubdiv) and was open-sourced by them specifically in order to improve interchange.

[@destroyonload3444]

Make sure you give your GPU a big smile and retopologize! 😁

[@lDhoko]

this is such a valuable resource grant!!! thank you so much!! btw, I bought your course in udemy super excited to start it this weekend

[@grabbitt]

Thanks

[@123owly]

The most important retopo video on the internet right here

[@chrisdotdash5154]

I’ve been waiting for a video like this! Love it. 🔥

[@hsseinhoussainy]

Bro your the best, I'm learning a lot from your videos, thank you.

[@jfcomposition]

Very good explained. Great job 👍

[@CorruptedYogi]

Very informative video 🖤 I am learning how to draw at the moment from one of your course at Udemy. Really loved the way you teach and tell things in details. As Indians says, “Ek Number” 🔥👌🏾 Thanks 🙏🏾

[@cyborg9099]

Best blender teacher 👍👍 man your tutorials are amazing 👍👍

[@pianoatthirty]

Quad Remesher folks! The MUST HAVE blender add on. Gives you great topology in seconds. How people have the patience to do this manually is just beyond me! This just feels like something a computer was meant to do - calculate and create even geometry.

[@mr.lunatic3157]

Except that we have to paid for that kind of computer monthly you mean😅

[@jean-michel.houbre]

I finally understand this word and what it hides! Thank you

[@araskuzucu3456]

After I learned the essentials of modeling, my all baking process is awful because of the decisions of the topology. Now I know how can handle it. Thanks.

[@gaston.]

excellent explanation.. thanks for sharing Grant

[@Benerro1991]

Thanks, Grant! Btw we (I hope I'm not the only one) missed your livestreams!

[@xrysakal5229]

Thank you for explaining everything!!!

[@magicbhai7477]

Godlike Tutorial THANK YOU

[@CrayTechTV]

clear, concise, and awesome! thanks Grant

[@EROKOJR]

This was super🙂 helpful. Thanks so much!

[@TruthSurge]

11:12. What if I want to bend it backwards? #3 seems most logical. Thx for the explanations!

[@anima8450]

Amazing demonstration!

[@Gettutorials123]

Nice one! Really love your tutorials.

[@Jellybeancracker]

Enrolled in your course grant!!

[@grabbitt]

Nice, 🙂👍

[@Jellybeancracker]

You explain soooo wellll!! Love it!

[@wege8409]

thanks grant

[@Cedrek]

Thank you as always 😎

[@GarviHere]

My tip would be : don't just add one vertex and quad at a time. Start extremely simple, enclosing holes and dents with stretched out quads cause then you can always add more loops later and use subsurface mod

[@doroteadollesin6102]

good job! i bet you are great at making s! good luck

[@kyleheilig255]

Thank you, I needed this. My first project broke blender and it still looks low poly.

[@bexymathew9668]

Great workflow

[@sarahashemi6521]

Hi. I like your tutorials. They are the best way to learn blender 🤗. Thank you so much for sharing them 👌💖. Recently, i heard about octane render engine for blender. It seems that this render engine is very fast and so poweful. Could you please share tutorials about it? Thank you very much ❤💖

[@halloo20halloo]

Thank you for the tutorial, could please explain or make an tutorial how can apply texture from high poly onto the low poly which is already retopologiesed, Thanks,

[@grabbitt]

this can be a little bit of a long process which i go into in my character course

[@dctimon]

What another great video!

[@eliaslns7143]

Nice as always

[@brendandash]

im trying to retopologize a hand but its hard because of the fingers- im using the polyquilt addon btw

[@eddy9538]

Grant you are the best

[@shaunreddiar7752]

I love your videos❤❤❤

[@hsab5927]

thanks for the Video

[@amanitamuscaria5863]

I have some mistakes in just sculption a sphere into body parts.

[@saantomero5483]

Awesome!

[@aivariukas]

Superb

[@__Rizzler__]

Love it nice.

[@magnusm4]

What's the difference and reason to retopologize normally like this, or doing like in your plank sculpting video and first sculpt the mesh, then make a duplicate. Then use a modifier on it that reduce poly count. Then finish the small touches of optimization by removing faces and vertices you don't need.

[@grabbitt]

i'm not sure i understand the question

[@magnusm4]

@@grabbitt Normally you retopologize by extruding square faces across the model to get the base shape of the mesh. But this is how you did in your plank sculpt tutorial: First you sculpted the plank, called this the High Definition. Duplicated it and called that one Low Definition. Used the Decimate Modifier on the duplicate. Applied modifier. Merged more of it's vertices together to reduce triangles and faces. And that's it. In your video series here Part 3 quick retopology: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o2PJo3lsZ7-ebMU

[@grabbitt]

One has much more control than the other

[@BOOMLAT]

sir i am having braking problem after shad smooth ,now what can i do

[@mrhollywood1173]

EXCELLENT Grant !

[@okidokidraws]

The first character looks like Chrono from Chrono Trigger. Like a revamped version.

[@JavierD]

Nice video, answered my question precisely about retopo; quick question: How do you make the animation at around 2:15 ?

[@grabbitt]

That was me moving around the view port with my new 3d controller

[@KaiBuskirk]

super radd!!! Grant im looking through your demos around real world sizing and set ups? any pointers to your guides... thanks in advance... kai

[@grabbitt]

Not really got anything on that

[@KaiBuskirk]

@@grabbitt thanks.... was having problems with a plane 800mm x 800mm trying to sort a solution thanks grant...kai

[@blanketparty5259]

Great video Grant very informative. Im quite familiar with the high to low workflow. But I'm not sure what you meant by retopoligizing my sculpt and then running it through a multires? Do you mean the retopo? Or the sculpt to be run through the multi res?

[@grabbitt]

both. I'll do a vid at some point

[@blanketparty5259]

@@grabbitt that would be great 👍

[@dubblesnup4457]

Can you do a video about IK Rigging?

[@darth_hylian]

Making game assets I assume you're a bit of a gamer yourself. What are some of your favorite games?

[@grabbitt]

Have'nt played a game for a while but witcher 3 is still my fav

[@bdbjr28]

thanks mr. abbitt!! have you tried the add-on retopoflow?

[@grabbitt]

Yes I'm talking about it soon

[@inkofthedragon]

I'm new to modelling. I'm curious why sculpt a model with a high poly count in the first place if you know you'll need a low poly count in the end? Why not just sculpt a low poly model in the first place? Thanks from a noob

[@grabbitt]

You can still use the detail from the high poly in a normal map

[@mr.lunatic3157]

so you can bake the high poly maps to the low poly model ..easily and you cant sculpt a low poly model 😂

[@PZAXR]

I actually figured out how to skip sculpting and retopology. XD

[@xcantenerealguy1361]

Is it needed for 3D printing? I am more interested to make assets to print but i want to understand if sculpting is enough or do i need to do retopo?

[@grabbitt]

Sculpting should be enough. A bit of an understanding of retopo helps but not essential

[@xcantenerealguy1361]

@grabbitt thank you for clarifying. I am doing an intensive course for Blender, but I have not found an answer to this question as my goal for blender is to create models for 3D printing. 😀

[@adityaprabhu1307]

61 years old and just purchased tNice tutorials software. i love making my own soft

[@RayStudio95]

Yeah Retopo is very useful. Better get used with it

[@CapsVODS]

can you bring back the link where i can buy you a drink? i was just talking about retopology yesterday with my friend, and i said i wasnt exactly sure what it is. So this was right on time

[@grabbitt]

yeah my paypal is in the description :) thanks

[@CapsVODS]

@@grabbitt oh my bad missed it!

[@bilgenathan7085]

Grant i wonder why did you add subdivision surface modifier to your armor pieces in character courses in udemy and after you deleted them before you adding multires modifier ??

[@grabbitt]

To give it more structure

[@localthreat1164]

You should give that low poly model you made a year ago with the rigging tutorial you should try to give it clothes

[@GC-vk2pg]

hey grant regarding cgboost courses, can i take master 3d scultping course without going through blender launch pad? im kind of only really interested in learning sculpting

[@grabbitt]

I would say so yes but it will help to have an understanding of the basics but you don't need a big course to do that

[@p.s.l7777]

just a question if i have a model with like 73.000 verticies should i then retology if i need it to be like 50.000 verticyes or what should i do then ?

[@grabbitt]

Yes retopo

[@1_Arii_1]

I have a basic understanding of retopolgy but its so hard... I dont know how to get better at it....

[@grabbitt]

It's just a practice thing

[@1_Arii_1]

I dont want to be annoying. But I have so many questions. Is there a Place where I can ask them. Its more about how to do stuff..@@grabbitt

[@grabbitt]

try the different forums and discord servers :)

[@gunnarb5194]

When you say that a game model is typically 20-30 thousand faces, does that mean 20-30k triangles so I'd have 10-15k quads in a clean retopologized mesh?

[@grabbitt]

I think it quads but can't remember now

[@SianaGearz]

There's frequently a limitation that a game engine mesh vertex buffer for any given drawable must not contain more than 65535 vertices. If you had a mesh of 30k quads, you could be coming dangerously close to touching that boundary, and would need to tiptoe around in editing that you don't cross it. But if you're at half that figure, you don't need to worry too much that the next minor editing operation will suddenly make too many polygons. It's fundamentally possible to make bigger meshes than this count, but they'll take twice as long to transfer to the GPU for the same number of vertices and will take up twice as much VRAM. Generally you want to keep your polycount as low as you can while achieving your visual goals. Micropolygons are bad for performance. Thanks to unified shaders, consider that you have a budget to compute several million pixels + vertices in total, with a little weighting perhaps, so excessive vertex count in millions in total for the scene absolutely will eat into your pixel budget, for one, and for other, rasterisation actually happens in blocks of several pixels per polygon, like 8 or so, and when most pixels in this block aren't occupied by the polygon that is being currently rendered at all, well that's wasted performance. So if your average polygon size as-rendered is smaller than several pixels, the performance can start to fall off a cliff. There is no abstract guideline to how complex a model should be, without considering the type of model and the scene as a whole. Do you have LODs? How many models will be visible? How much screen real estate are each expected to take up? How much overdraw is there? Because ultimately you need to keep not so much perhaps a single model within any given budget, but you predominantly need to keep the complexity of the whole scene to a reasonable level. A scenario with thousands of entities will have different requirements than one with just a dozen. It wouldn't be perhaps too absurd (though maybe still excessive) to see a 1vs1 fighting game dedicate like 300k polys per character, and have them split into like 10 different drawables each, and maybe give 10k polys to the whole environment otherwise.

[@gunnarb5194]

@@SianaGearz Thanks for the awesome reply, that explains a lot =)

[@prettyskeasy]

Ahh I misred the title. I read "Reptology" and wondered if this is a very special modelling teqnic for reptilian humoids.

[@keelfly]

You should also focus on WHEN we need it. We don't always need it really. Too much importance has been put in Retopology and Unwrapping, and it is not always necessary to waste so much time.

[@aidanfordsword6954]

Hey so I'm wondering. I'm trying to learn how to sculpt to print them out on my resin printer. Would I still have to retopologize?

[@grabbitt]

No

[@aidanfordsword6954]

@@grabbitt awesome thanks! Also to for the heart!

[@cabeunicolas6069]

Can you make the rig to non distort the stuff of the character please ?

[@grabbitt]

That's down to the character not the rig often

[@cabeunicolas6069]

@@grabbitt If you create simple character and you add the stuff for exemple bag or chest ?

[@bexymathew9668]

Just one doubt,is it ok to do subdivision surface.will it be laggy ?

[@grabbitt]

Not sure what you mean

[@bexymathew9668]

There is a modifier for subdividing surfaces, right

[@bexymathew9668]

When we finish retopology, is it ok to subdivide the surfaces

[@tysean0816]

I hate it so bad. I've got tones of sculpts still trying to figure this out.

[@grabbitt]

maybe wait to find out about the automated tools in the next video

[@knightsredemption8172]

Bro remember the fundraiser you did I can’t find the link to the corses

[@grabbitt]

Links are in the description. My courses so still have a discount but not as much as over that weekend

[@knightsredemption8172]

Ok thanx

[@pratyushgupta8999]

my pc chokes when sculpting high poly

[@ziyad3825]

why did u stop making the game ready axe tutorial

[@grabbitt]

Views were very low and I think there was enough for people to compete it now on their own

[@ziyad3825]

@@grabbitt oh ok

[@blendermerchant]

What do you guys to keep yourselves awake through these blender tutorials?

[@user-pu6vs4fg1y]

missing my ti line sir.

[@HarnaiDigital]

Once again 1st

[@grabbitt]

you are indeed :)

[@yezzzsir]

The Good the Bad & the Ugly. Nice one lol! (wasted on the young ;-) )

[@Barriertriostruckapose]

literally everyone over the age of 12 knows that movie

[@nelyrions1838]

5 minutes into the video and i can already hear the screeching and whining from people who use booleans and doesn't clean up afterwards, you know who you are, please stop.

[@acabtitano4631]

is tNice tutorials ASMR?

[@DisgruntledPigumon]

Please be careful with your native English, as you are influencing countless thousands of people who are often not native English speakers and are learning by your words. “The first video looks at what is retopology? and why do we bother?” INCORRECT. 😱 Are you telling me something, or are you asking me two questions? 🤔 “The first video looks at what topology is and why we bother.” CORRECT 😃 You were making statements of fact, not asking the viewer questions. 👨‍🎓

[@Lavicious]

It’s rhetorical questions.