Must Have Addons & Tools for Retopology

#blender #topology #3dartist
In this video talk about the different addons and tools for retopology
Chapters and links
0:00 INTRO
0:55 DECIMATE
4:06 VOXEL & QUADRIFLOW REMESH
7:43 POLYBUILDER
9:07 INSTATMESH - github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes
11:13 BSURFACES ADDON
12:20 QUADREMESHER $60 - exoside.com/quadremesher/
16:29 RETOPOLOW $68 - blendermarket.com/products/re...
18:10 TESSALATOR $8.5 - blendermarket.com/products/te...
18:40 SPEEDRETOPO $1 blendermarket.com/products/sp...
What is retopology and why do we bother video
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[@WaterShowsProd]

Psychoanalysts used to say that you can determine a person's personality by the flow of their topology. That's not the best joke, but it's good enough for the algorithm.

[@TotalWannabe]

Well, judging by my topology, I'm a terrible person

[@philmehrart]

Was going to bring up normal maps, but didn't want to go off on a tangent, haw haw

[@clally3866]

@@TotalWannabe Hahahaha mine would just be a series of screams

[@coronaphone710]

The biggest fear of a psychoanalist is a mirror. That's why Social Media is such a mess nowadays while online psychiatry shows signs of a pyramid scheme in my opinion.

[@coronaphone710]

Other people say don't judge a book by its cover

[@darrennew8211]

I absolutely love your reviews of "here's a bunch of tools/classes/techniques." It really helps speed up the learning, especially for beginners.

[@gedrgesfsdfwe4046]

I don't think it's good for beginners particularly. In literally everything including visual arts the only method to automatize your works is to study first how to do every single thing from scratch to understand how things really work and only then move to specific methods or tools if necessarily

[@daremo50na76]

I love Retopoflow 3. Still learning it, but I love the tools and being able to do fingers arms and legs in a few minutes vs an hour is GREAT!

[@YOSFP]

I absolutely love that you don't only show 'the best solutions', but also some that might come in handy (and their usecases too!)

[@mrhollywood1173]

Grant ...... That was a FABULOUS coverage of the Retopology addon ....... much appreciate it. Cheers

[@kertellfloat]

You have no idea how much time you just saved for me. I was struggling so hard trying to find out the optimal way to retoplogize. Thank you so much!!! Will definitely go with retopoflow in my case. Maybe pair it up with softwrap for god-like retopo.

[@gaston.]

thank you Grant! such valuable info. for us program newbies. I am revisiting 3D, 25 years later when I was apart of a NYC 3D studio user group but gave it up in exasperation. These tools are now so much more artist friendly and only improving constantly.

[@SerMattzio]

Great video, thank you. Retopo is oddly intimidating as a newbie, videos like this are so helpful :)

[@Nightmoore]

Thanks so much for posting this. I'm using Blender for motion graphics work and converting client logos into 3D for some projects. Blender makes a mess with Font topology (or imported Illustrator shapes), and it's a huge pain to get anything clean to deform or bevel faces. Decimate wasn't helping much either from leaving triangles all over the edges. On some stuff, I just had to rebuild letters manually using planes. Quad Remesh just crushed it with one click and did exactly what I was looking for. Worth every penny.

[@talisman3d595]

Hey Grant, recently I got my first commissions to do some hard surface work, and I decided to spend that money on quadremesher based on this and other retopology videos. Excited to make more organic things and be able to texture and rig easier. Thanks for making these videos!

[@rickvandyk1855]

Great explanation of retopology tools. I really appreciate it.

[@apemant]

Poly builder is amazing, it blew my mind! And it's not an add-on, it's in the package already, so that's great. I don't think the setup is very hard. Instead of shrink wrap you can use Object properties / Viewport display / In front, then snap to surface on, works quite good at the start at least. Another thing, which was huge for me, is to change the drag sensitivity of the mouse and tablet pen, see Preferences / Input / Mouse Drag Threshold, and Tablet Drag Threshold, I use 2 pixels; It changes how quickly Blender reacts when you drag a vertex or other element (when NOT using G for grab). Makes the Tweak tool work much much much (yes, 3 muches) better! Default settings has a huge lag when you drag verts/edges/faces I think. Try it!

[@Kavriel]

I have got to praise the quality of the content you're making. Obviously, you're making money from it, so you have incentives to do well, but the quality from all the videos I've seen you make is top-notch. You manage to pack quite a lot of content in relatively short videos, and that's what most people want, to learn a lot in a short time. So thanks a bunch.

[@master-gbig1140]

It's nice to finally see someone explain in detail more of the fundamental principles of creating complex objects in blender. Whereas, a few years ago blender modelers were pontificating as though they were God's. However, you bring us up to speed without beclouded metaphors that leave us empty handed, and scrambling in the dark after spending so much time listening. You are truly generis and inspiring to the creative community. I started out with Martin Hash's Animation Master which has fallen by the waist side, and blender seems like a great alternative because of people like you. Thank you for sharing.

[@stevesculptor1]

I know what you mean by 'Gods' like the youtuber 'numb nuts with the donuts'

[@Tutterzoid]

Thanks for all your research on these tools :)

[@RG3DAnimationstudio]

Some really great tips, thank you

[@ddsmax]

No fluff, just info. As a developer who knows nothn bout blender and 3d art, this video was very helpful.

[@kamius1]

Thanks for excellent tutorial. It is a huge help for beginners to have a better retopology. 👍👍👍

[@Blendercage]

I use quad remesher every day and I really like it for non animated things. It even does fine for that with a lot of meshes but I prefer the controls of retopoflow 3 for animation.

[@anotherguycalledsmith]

Ecxellent content from your side - as always - and exactly what I needed right now. Thanks a lot indeed! See you ;-)

[@psy237]

quad remesher, if you increase the adaptive size, that doesn't mean it makes more faces! It only means it distributes smaller faces where there's more detail needed. That's all. The option below called "adapt quad count" is the one you need to uncheck, if you wanna stay close to your desired quad count. Then if you wanna have further influence on the edge loops, you can actually use materials: edge-loop-control > use material ;) i really have to download the latest version of retopoflow, looks like big improvements since the first version on which I gave up on :'D

[@indianocean29]

Very helpful !! thank you for sharing

[@Zgadek]

Great tutorial! Thanks a lot. I would love to see a material which explain all type of export files

[@matslarsson5988]

Bsurfaces addon was news to me. Thanks!

[@BlenderQuick]

Thanks so much, i needed this...................

[@MrAlkhial]

thanks Grant for every thing

[@Estellars]

Hello, I'm someone who uses Speedretopo! I think it's a good tool for beginners (like me) learning to retopologize their meshes/sculpts! It automatically uses things like shrinkwrap and mirror from the get go, and puts the new mesh in front of the model so you can see it without the original poking through. I use the vertices mode, since I don't quite understand some of the other modes it offers. I just build faces after placing a vertice to start from! I do hope to buy Retopflow at some point, but for a low end option I can say that Speedretopo is pretty good, though you still have that learning curve and it's not as fast.

[@claysculptress]

Awesome review!

[@KaiBuskirk]

oh man im gonna have to get back to this..... thank you!!!

[@yusrighouse]

Retopoflow has peaked my interest. That was so satisfying to see those polystrips being made automatically.

[@YoniBoy]

Hey, great work !

[@GerardMenvussa]

The Bsurfaces add-on sounds like a perfect solution.

[@EricTViking]

Quad Remesher is great - well worth the money. It doesn't do what you want 100% of the time, but more often than not it will get you the results you need with a couple of clicks. There are loads of times it's turned what would be hours of work into seconds.

[@farukTheProBro]

Huge thanks for video

[@infographie]

Excellent.

[@zaidkiwan5168]

more character sculpts is always welcome

[@paulorodriguez6288]

dang, i gotta try Bsurf, looks like exactly what i want

[@KatlinSchirmer]

Thanks dear.

[@kingtk5848]

This video was SO HELPFUL. I have a question, if you are mainly interested in retopology of the face which of these options would be the best and save the most time? The cost of these options isn’t a factor.

[@SkSafowan]

very Helpfull

[@jessicabernstein6185]

great tutorial

[@njdotson]

Poly build looks quite a bit better to use compared to regular extruding and filling I haven't tried it yet

[@yezzzsir]

@3:15 where you talk about decimating then retopo on the decimated sculpt. Can I clarify that you do not have to delete your Hi res sculpt to stop lagging, just hide it while you retopo over the lower decimated mesh to deal with lagging issues?

[@grabbitt]

That's correct

[@euginejoseph7685]

Thank you

[@TheGuardianofAzarath]

There's also one called G-retopo (I think) which uses the grease pencil for retopology, from the look of it, it seems to function similar to retopoflow (which I may consider picking up). Overall, a rather nice look at some retopo tools here, topoflow definitely looks the most user-friendly.

[@CGBit]

NICE !

[@kruth6663]

Adaptive size is great, most auto retopo tools tend to waste too many polys on large planar surfaces, like the pectorals on this one. Though in this video's example it doesn't look quite adaptive enough, I wonder how far can it go. A big part of the reason I want to use auto retopo tools is that I don't want to calculate and reroute the edge flows between different parts myself, it's one of the most annoying part of modeling to me.

[@brolybroly3836]

Nice!

[@eliaslns7143]

Cool ❤️🔥

[@Smash_ter]

When using Quad Remesher if you're making a character uncheck "detect hard edges by angle". If not it messes with the edgeflow of an organic model. The biggest downside imo is no edgeflow control, and the plug in hasn't received any new updates since 2020.

[@sillyninja65]

retopoflow is exactly what im looking for

[@user-kv5ee6ou6q]

Very clear and useful video, thanks a lot!

[@henryvasquez1814]

Hey Grant, great video as usual. Quick question, should I which one would you get first: Quad Remesher or RetopoFlow? your opinion is highly appreciated.

[@grabbitt]

Quad remesher is my favourite

[@henryvasquez1814]

@@grabbitt Thank you!!

[@yilmazoguzfatih]

Hello, I cannot access the Exoside website from Turkey. I connected via VPN and downloaded the add-on. However, when using "Failed to download Quad Remesher Engine (exception)." I get an error. I searched on forums and elsewhere but couldn't find any results. Can anyone with knowledge on this subject help?

[@thecanaeggplant2937]

Teach me master!!

[@GoreShift]

I'm eyeing with the Quad Remesher for models for a game I'm making since it basically does all the work, especially since it's from the same guy that made the ZRemesher and that worked quite wonders. You said it's not that ideal for games, why is that? I really want to use that tool haha^^

[@grabbitt]

It depends on the game actually. If you don't mind it not fully optimised it's really good

[@nealcaffrey4837]

Thanks a lot, all my sculpts are meant for animation, i'm wonder if the quadremesher is good for that, i mean, retopo is a time consuming, i'm spending about 5-6 hours per character ahah

[@grabbitt]

It's pretty good but it's not optimal. Retopologise is better for that but if you need to be quick and it's not going into games then quad remesh er is the best

[@SnortingBaguette]

Nice, but is there a chance we'll see a vid like this about animation addons in the future?

[@grabbitt]

Yeah probably🙂👍

[@pfeffermartin642]

hi what setup is required to display the objectdata - facecount etc in the left top of the screen as in your video excuse my english thx

[@grabbitt]

It's in overlays

[@flyingroads3498]

Hello again. I have a really low topo body and a much higher topo head. How to join them I'm having problems on the neck. Shadows show up when bridge them toggeter.

[@grabbitt]

the only way is to put in a scarf or similar as ideally they would match

[@zaidkiwan5168]

what's the tool you use for knowing how much faces are there in an object?

[@grabbitt]

Overlays. Statistics

[@Misericorde451]

I've been using the Polybuild tool and a lot of time it's awkward and hard to control lol. Might give the other ones a try, especially BSurface

[@grabbitt]

yeah bsurfaces is pretty good :)

[@JohnSatan]

Use PolyQuilt

[@markholley1997]

I've subscribed to Quad Remesher, but in the couple of models I've remeshed I have a problem. The topology looks great, but there's an issue where if you select an edge loop, it "spirals" around the model. It makes it impossible to UV map the model. I contacted Exoside and they said that it was a known issue called "spiraling" and that there was no automatic way around it - no setting in Quad Remesher to make anything all better.

[@Zeriel00]

This makes it very difficult to animate. What you could do is delete the joints and make the loops yourself and maybe re-use a mesh for the hands. The face would still be a problem, this is why auto retopology never works.

[@crowdemon_archives]

Zbrush's Zremesh does that too sometimes. Only way to fix it is to redo the loop sadly.

[@Zeriel00]

A good alternative is using the Retopoflow add on for Blender. You can get it for free in Github. This is not auto Retopo and it will take you a bit to learn the tools but it allows you to quickly make edge loops by draging a line around the mesh. You can only use automatic retopology on stuff that is hard surface or not animated.

[@sherlockhomes9919]

@@Zeriel00 retopoflow free? Where? I only see paid addon for retopoflow.

[@sidar87]

Old video but PolyQuilt is also really good for manual retopo/

[@EnberFeres]

bsurface is pretty cool but after i started using it, the vertices auto merges when their are "apparently" too close of each other, this is runing my experience. Is there a way to fix this (i tried disabling the "auto join" on bsurface panel)

[@grabbitt]

I've not had that problem. You can turn off auto merge in the options near the top right of your viewport

[@Dina_tankar_mina_ord]

I guess this is a reocurring question regarding retopopoly. but could´nt you just get a shape around your highres with a low polycount like a separet finger or leg and shrinkwrap it?

[@grabbitt]

Yes

[@plachenko]

You didn't mention it but the softwrap plugin seems extremely useful. I haven't used it though.

[@igotbit9454]

Hi Grant I found the best retopology tool. You wanna know what it is? Outsourcing it.

[@FreyaVal]

Hi Grant Abbitt, I always use BSurface (sometime Quad Remesher) and I have a question: the plugin makes my Retopo mesh and the HP mesh objects see through (not transparent), what do I have to do to fix it? I looked on the options but couldn’t find a solution

[@grabbitt]

I'm assuming that's just X Ray mode

[@FreyaVal]

@@grabbitt oh i think it is, yes! I still don't know where to turn it off. Can you please tell me? (Edited: OH it's not that)

[@FreyaVal]

I've solved it in Viewport Display. Finally!

[@joshua42777]

with quadrimesher you can paint where you want more polygons

[@mixchief]

1:29 Anyone know why Decimate mod shows different face count than the Statistics overlay?

[@grabbitt]

Should be the same as the triangle count but only when applied

[@r.i.9976]

at 4.49 narrative says voxel size will be changed to "point zero one" but it is changed to .1 on screen

[@grabbitt]

My mistake

[@hpoasbl5941]

Hello, I recover an OBJ file from a scan. I want to make a remesh while keeping the texture. Is it possible and how? Thanks in advance.

[@grabbitt]

Texture baking. See my baking playlist

[@hpoasbl5941]

@@grabbitt OK! Thank you. There are a lot of videos, which one should I watch? Thank you.

[@grabbitt]

i dont actually remember but the series will give you all the info you need and its not that long

[@milanzeeman4454]

Grant with addon would you say you would use for retopology

[@grabbitt]

Quadremesh

[@boinao8046]

I have been following your tutorials in uv unrapping and texture painting......... I know this topic is a bit away from this video's topic..... But ..... Kindly do a tutorial on projection mapping a matte painting .... I tried using fspy ... But its quite difficult to use on images taken outdoors.... Like mountains , rivers , trees etc ... I dont have money to buy softwares like nuke...... I have seen tutorials where organic images are projected on to the geometry in nuke using photoshop files...... So , how can we do that in blender .... Kindly do a tutorial.... Thanks in advance for making such noble tutorials for free.

[@grabbitt]

yeah i'm slowly looking into this more but it will be a while :)

[@boinao8046]

@@grabbitt thanks ..... For the reply ... I will be waiting

[@Belarus9000]

if you left the creation of the retopology and did not finish, how to start again without creating a new topology? retopoflow

[@grabbitt]

You can create a new one and join it

[@octanegraphics89]

What about retopoMT?

[@urieldelarosa3276]

This might be an obvious question, but what exactly is the point of retopology? Is it for faster renders?

[@GriffinSteve15]

Mostly used in animation. A proper topology is needed to rig the character without weird stretching and pinching. Also, yes less poly count = faster renders

[@grabbitt]

See the previous video in the play list

[@JohnSatan]

Try to animate sculpt, or rig it

[@Ifhydn]

I use retopoflow is nice one but I’m beginner at retopology so it’s kinda frustrating sometimes

[@ViraLCyclopes]

Isn't retopoflow free? they have a public GitHub which when you download the zip just works

[@grabbitt]

You can get it from there yes

[@SleepyMatt-zzz]

You should of mentioned that TESSALATOR hasn't been updated in over a year. It doesn't work past Blender 2.8. The addon is essentially dead.

[@yahyabaskale8948]

[@hikam9721]

try shift + R to remesh

[@hikam9721]

and Ctrl + R to apply it

[@HarnaiDigital]

Woopsie. I'm late. Sorry

[@alantir666]

wait a second you not making models with optimalization from beginning ? this seems like much more work to do

[@Sigmamagic15]

Yes, how to use video required

[@hattylaird9756]

0:25 when you go from 2021 > 1996 graphics

[@Metarig]

why not zbrush core and zremesher

[@grabbitt]

I probably should have specified that this is meant for Blender users, hence the logo on the thumbnail

[@Metarig]

@@grabbitt well it's free so it makes sense to be included

[@grabbitt]

@@Metarig I'll have to look into them

[@bradleyejones]

2:05 looks into your soul

[@murgatroydfungus4352]

And here I was retopologizing 50k poly models by hand and thinking this is my life now😭

[@MysticMango09]

Retopoflow is and was always free

[@BenLe42]

Have you ever tried Jremesher?

[@BenLe42]

because Quad Remesher, as AMAZING as it is, is very damn expensive.

[@grabbitt]

i've not tried it yet no

[@BenLe42]

@@grabbitt Looking at it now it seems to use Instant Meshes, but runs them within Blender. So not dissimilar to what you've talked about here. Thanks for the video!

[@grabbitt]

@@BenLe42 nice

[@peter486]

seperate part then run a quad remesh you are gona get a even better result.

[@chomsky72]

at $86 Retopoflow is very steep in price. I do have Speedretopo but haven't played with it.

[@ozas-me]

I quit most of my projects on the retopology stage.

[@grabbitt]

then quadremesh is the one for you :)

[@ozas-me]

@@grabbitt Thanks! I will give it a try :)

[@JohnSatan]

Where PolyQuilt? Native modeling tools, looptools, polyquilt and some topology knowledge is everything you need to make retopology fast and easy.

[@mboe94]

Why would we want to do retopology - can't we just decimate to reduce count?

[@grabbitt]

because of the topology direction and flow. which is important for keeping shape and deformation in animations

[@waleedcreates4294]

hey you keep talking about "having an understanding of retopology" .what do you mean by that ?

[@grabbitt]

See my video on topology

[@waleedcreates4294]

@@grabbitt thanks.those really helped

[@Zeriel00]

Retopology on Blender is a mess and I hope they would take a look at it. Right now it requires way too many settings that are all over the place and the polybuild tool is an exercise in frustration. It also has no quick easy way to attach edges and the auto merge can merge unwanted vertices. Blender needs to fix this, put all the tools into one place and make it easy to use and user friendly.

[@EenaTheBudgie]

it is 3.0 alpha or 2.92?

[@grabbitt]

I'm using 2.92 in this