Retopology in a few seconds - instant mesh

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How to download, install and use Instant Mesh.
github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes
An excellent retopology tool for those that want a quick retopo.
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[@zevac]

My obj isn't showing up on instant meshes at all, do you know what the problem might be?

[@grabbitt]

not sure. Perhaps check your normals and check if your mesh has any holes

[@zevac]

Grant Abbitt it actually isn't showing up for any of my meshes even if it's a simple cube, I'm completely lost at the moment

[@zevac]

@@grabbitt alright, I found the problem. I was running it with my Nvidia gpu, you gotta tell everyone to use integrated graphics instead of the default option

[@grabbitt]

@@zevac thanks for that

[@zevac]

@@grabbitt no prob

[@FacityUK]

Thanks for all your videos Grant, you're easily my favourite blender youtuber and i've learnt so much via your videos, as you don't lock anything behind a gumroad/patreon paywall!

[@Kholaslittlespot1]

I love it when I'm watching a video to learn one thing, and then learn other techniques in the process. I had no idea about the Clear Sharp feature and now want to go back to some of my models and try it out. Thanks yet again!

[@grabbitt]

good to hear :)

[@ogeelekwa]

me neither :)

[@BunnyGunGames]

5:30 - 'Clear Sharp' to smooth out the mesh... THANK YOU!

[@grabbitt]

:)

[@johnlannikk2701]

Grant, This is priceless! I'm an old LIghtwave user and am finding all this addons and helpful software quite mindblowing. I completed a 4 minute cartoon a few years ago which took me 5 years including music score, but with this new software it would be a fraction of the time. I feel like a baby in a candy store especially with all your free tuts, and by the way you deserve that 100k award! Just amazing how you fit it all in. Thank You, all this is so helpfull with my new project in Blender.

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@RichWilco]

I expect this process would be even more effective if you separate your model into smaller meshes first (eg: helmet, pauldrons, belt, sandals and body) and then merge them back together. I’ve always found retopologising to be the most tedious part of the process, so I’m definitely going to have a play with this.

[@grabbitt]

Richard Wilcoxson yes good idea

[@ThereAreNoFacts]

I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THISSS!!!! Kudos to you and a HUGE thanks for creating IM!!

[@grabbitt]

:)

[@BramvanVliet]

Thank you so much for this video Grant, I learned so much from you over the last couple of months. Your tutorials helped me a lot in getting better in Blender. I didn't publish all my projects on my youtube channel yet, but maybe you can see the influence in some of my work already :-D

[@KadeMarkoux]

Seems pretty useful, I've seen it before but never bothered with it but after watching this I ended up downloading it to try it out. Thanks!

[@octaviusace9177]

One more tip for using Instant Mesh: If you're running on a multi-core CPU, take advantage of it. You can get a significant speed boost in activities that can be parallelised, e.g. solving operations. Just start from the command line or a desktop shortcut/launcher and using the command: Instant Mesh --threads n (or Windows equivalent) Where n is number of threads your CPU can spawn, e.g. on a hexacore Ryzen CPU, you have 6 physical and 12 logical cores available, so use them. Cheers

[@chukwudiebite7775]

I love this tutorial. Wow, it is very insightful.

[@MsWolf2011]

Thank you for making this video! Super helpful!

[@grabbitt]

Glad it was helpful!

[@GryphonDes]

Instant Mesh can be a life saver! What I love about it the best is that it is also built into 3d_Coat as an extra re-topo option :O and since I use my Blender->3D-Coat link all the time anyway it just works out fantastically. It is, though, absolutely great to see the developers have made such a great littel tool directly available as well!

[@I_am_ARTBOT]

Wow, this worked great! Thanks!

[@samdavepollard]

Thanks, Grant. Very nice video. I assume that one day (I don't know how long we'll need to wait) AI will take care of retopo with one click. :-)

[@siete3d950]

this is awesome, thank you

[@RaunySilva]

If Grant Abbit recommended, then it is worth trying.

[@AuXXKeyz]

Great tutorial Grant! thanks

[@octaviusace9177]

At one point in the video you [Grant Abbitt] mention that switching between the "comb" mode and the model rotate mode requires a workflow-interrupting mouse-click action. Having used this tool in anger, I wholeheartedly agree. If you want to change this default behaviour, simply download the source and amend the viewer.cpp file to add the following at the end of the if-then-else conditional, in the Viewer::keyboardEvent function: } else if (key == ' ') { mOrientationComb->setPushed(!mOrientationComb->pushed()); } Then recompile. This allows you to toggle comb mode on/off via the space bar. It's really easy if you're a linux user and are used to compiling from make files - just import into your favourite IDE or directly edit the viewer.cpp file, then build using make or your IDE. Cheers

[@grabbitt]

nice :)

[@alexdib3915]

thank you!

[@tobiaskc2975]

WOW, Your my God,You save my life and time,Thank you so mush

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@fred.b8088]

Thanks for this. Appears to be far superior to blenders decimate tool that I always use.

[@thiagoc4358]

Thank You so much!!

[@IndieScapeGames]

If I wasnt already subscribed, this video would make me subscribe Fortunately I found you in another video and KZbin recommended this for me. THANK YOU!

[@IndieScapeGames]

I followed this tutorial and got my model down from 83,000 polys to about 6,000! Game ready!

[@DanSmith-rm7wo]

bless you sir

[@chopehr4358]

Just suscribed! Thank you for this!!!

[@grabbitt]

thanks

[@anishxxi]

thank you

[@optimusprime5446]

Thank you soo much

[@briticalhit4987]

Grant, you have saved my bacon yet again. In fact, over the past few months, you have saved enough bacon for me to make a small pig. Greasy thanks!

[@cookiesontoast9981]

Edit: I said this before seeing the clear sharp thing at the end :) thank you Original comment: But for some reason when putting it into blender, when I try to bake a normal with the higher poly one over this one it makes the normal map have a bunch of squares on it just like this lower poly one it made? I thought normals were meant to put the HD details and smoothness over the low poly squares but it doesn't when I tried to use this, it bakes the squares into the normals.

[@Lexe2009]

Interesting but it doesn't look like something I would use. If you use shrink wrap for the arms and legs and vertex projection to surface for the armor parts, half of which is mirrored anyway, you can build this character in an hour and use a fifth of the verteces of the 5000 used.

[@GiovanniBurroni]

So Christmas comes in April this year

[@onewayroad3765]

I will try this for retopologying my sculpted rock

[@designer9137]

Thank you Sir :)

[@silenthawkgaming2379]

Thank you so much! I really REALLY! hate the idea of manual Retopology lol

[@grabbitt]

you are not alone :)

[@vazak11]

Cool stuff!

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@ValeGoG]

Спасибо за выпуск :)

[@jaredturner2156]

@grant Is there a way for the software to preserve the texture UVs? It so it would be a great way to cut out the normal mapping process. Also is it normal for having to actually type out .obj when saving the retopogized mesh or is that just me?

[@grabbitt]

I dont think it can preserve the uvs unfortunately and no idea why we have to type out 'obj :)

[@l.clevelandmajor9931]

I noted that when I export or save out the retopologized mesh, it is a much higher polygon count. This happens even though I do all the reduction techniques. It still comes out with far too many polygons for a good import into other 3D programs. DAZ Studio, will not import the new mesh generated using Instant Meshes, Wings 3D protests with a crash dump file, and Bryce 7.1 simply freezes. I have 64 bit versions of DAZ Studio and Wings 3D. Bryce is a 32 bit program with no 64 bit version available. What are the actual steps needed to save the reduced topology into a new mesh?

[@grabbitt]

You can type in the number of poly's you require

[@AnthonyRosbottom]

Is anybody else having problems launching the windows version of Instant Meshes? It crashes at launch for me. (standard Win10 setup)

[@alicesacco9329]

I downloaded both Instand Meshes and Dataset, but when I try to open dataset, it just give me errors: (linker error: Mesh_shader 63), it crashes and I have to close the program.

[@jfcomposition]

I think the flipped normals guys fooled us all with Retopology 😂

[@jinxxpwnage]

This is Great! i know it's bad for face topology and hand topology but would it be okay to seperate these and only use IM to do the body? or would it sill be wrong for animation?

[@grabbitt]

no that's ok to get reasonable results

[@stevensilcock]

Thanks Grant. Just downloaded Instant Mesh. Any idea if Instant Mesh will work on a mesh with holes in it? For instance, one created by Meshroom with no bottom? Need a way of quickly meshing the bottom of those Meshroom creations to allow easier retopology. Tricky using shrinkwrap or snap to if no bottom on your mesh.

[@grabbitt]

Good question i dont think it does work. TRy and fill the holes with grid fill perhaps

[@AClarke2007]

I was under the impression Blender would already have this capability.

[@grabbitt]

it does now in 2.81 but it still needs work to match up to instant mesh

[@NikaZautashvili_aka_NikVili]

There is actually an add-on for implementing some of the IM features right into blender. It can also quickly send model from blender to IM. Maybe someone will find it useful. Thanks.

[@ogsens6039]

Nika Zautashvili what is the add on,

[@NikaZautashvili_aka_NikVili]

OGSENS blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?387378-WIP-InstantMesher-automated-export-and-import-for-Instant-Meshes-(Windows-Linux)

[@grabbitt]

Thanks guys

[@nedimkarabulut5970]

Thank you 😮

[@grabbitt]

thanks :)

[@coreynoxon]

Any tips or rules if thumb when deciding how much to decimate the original model? Maybe decimate by a certain percentage of the original model size, or just down to a specific number?

[@grabbitt]

Generally I always find 0.3 works well

[@gnightrow4020]

would you recommend this over manual retopology ?

[@vincev4630]

In my opinion, this method is much better because if you need to adjust any vertices for animation, you can edit those specific areas while Manually, it's tedious. Modeling yourself then having to trace on top of it is like painting the Mona Lisa, putting the painting under a lightbox and tracing it for the final render. That's nails on the chalkboard for an artist so this one really saves that mental stamina by basically simulating a decimation tool, which is easier to digest. I'd definitely recommend this method over manual retopology. The goal is just to simplify the mesh for animation and rendering times.

[@hihi-ip6xu]

hello,Grant, thanks for your tutorial, can I ask why when I exported my model, and then imported others software that shows it lost UV? How to resolve the problem? Thank you in advance!

[@grabbitt]

yes you have to do this before uvs

[@vaishnav_mallya]

Thank you! That was an awesome tutorial series. But one doubt. Does reducing the face count always reduce the detail. I have seen models with around 20k tris whilst maintaining high details in artstation. How do they do that?

[@grabbitt]

normal maps, which we will go into later :)

[@vaishnav_mallya]

Grant Abbitt :) thanks

[@josephbrandenburg4373]

They probably did the retopology by hand. It's not about how many vertices, it' how you use them.

[@rayzercalitri1666]

I have an Issue: I try to retopologize a high-poly character, and almost everything is fine, except that this character has pointy, straight claws, and when I extract the mesh, it always looks messy, the claws disappear when reaching the pointy ends, and some faces float. Any solution to this?

[@grabbitt]

this is very awkward and in fact the only way to solve it is to have the claws less pointy

[@IGarrettI]

Hey I was wonder, why aren't you using substance painter for your texturing? OTher than the cost of it and availability, unless that's the reason? Cheers! Love your hand painted tutorials. I always wanted to texture in the wow style/handpainted, but I hate texturing in photoshop

[@grabbitt]

yes I have looked into it but i try and do most things in blender first. I might go over to it a bit more in future

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Blender has quite good texturing tools. Like the ability to work directly in your original scene.

[@LLLMuzical]

you are the best

[@grabbitt]

Thanks :)

[@user-th2ii9xx1m]

Thank you so much))) But why retopology is so necessary if we have such a powerful tool to work with? Because effect is the same?

[@grabbitt]

you cannot texture paint on very high meshes or use them in games

[@end-me-please]

Thank you papa

[@grabbitt]

:)

[@ahmedtohami6719]

amazing thaaaaaaaaaaaaank yoooooooooooooooooooooooooou

[@thekirlianeffect2635]

Guys! That's super cool, but when I export the new mesh, it loose all the UV maps, so it's useless for me... any suggestions?

[@grabbitt]

Which export

[@thekirlianeffect2635]

I'm referring to the export from "Instant meshes". Basically if I import a mesh into "Instant Meshes" to retopology it, when I export the new reduced mesh, it loses the pivot and most important.. the UV maps

[@wdblackout]

@@thekirlianeffect2635 i might be late but you dont uv map a high resolution mesh. you do it after retopology

[@swapnanilnag3713]

Hi can I use it for dyntopo base mesh , and again importing in blender and sculpt in multiresolution modifier , and then finally retopo again manually ?? It will be very helpful , if reply

[@grabbitt]

yes

[@swapnanilnag3713]

Ok thanks 😁 I just recently started blender

[@keyshar]

thanks alot it dos work , but I cant see the mesh in the app can anyone help me

[@grabbitt]

it might be too high poly. You could try decimating first

[@programmingtacticalcode7968]

Grant Abbitt:i got one problem when i import in instant mesh my 3d model and then some faces missing actually are invisible, then what to do?!

[@grabbitt]

Not sure about that

[@funnyanimalworld7579]

Doesent instant meshes mess up topology abit in a bendy areas making harder to animated?

[@grabbitt]

Yes it can do

[@tanhanming545]

Did instant mash apply to all 3D software?

[@grabbitt]

it works with .obj files so if your software can export to obj then it will work

[@zayntran691]

Hey man please help I exported this Obj file from Zbrush which have around 670k points and open it in instant meshes but the app just loading and not respoding in the graph coloring process. Cheers

[@grabbitt]

Not sure why that would be

[@petertremblay3725]

Only good for static object and often if you want to sculpt afterward the geometry generated by IM will be full of naughty errors! Don't even think about it for animated models!

[@grabbitt]

yes i agree. just for those starting out.

[@ruslanartamitsky3425]

Excuse me, where is the link?

[@hurtme5286]

github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes Lazy bastard

[@mrexotics3308]

github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes here you go

[@grabbitt]

yep put it in now sorry

[@DavidRidlen]

Is there a way to preserve UVs?

[@grabbitt]

Don't think so

[@mouseli5753]

I need help. After I complete the topology, the file cannot be saved to the computer. Why is that? error:write mesh

[@grabbitt]

Not sure with that. Did you follow the making convention I mentioned

[@mouseli5753]

@@grabbitt I found the reason, I saved it directly to the original file and replaced it, thank you

[@santicheeks1106]

why does mine lose some of its faces when I export it back into blender

[@grabbitt]

not sure why that would be. There is a new option in recent versions of blender called remesh which you could use

[@santicheeks1106]

@@grabbitt ok thanks

[@elisafantini9022]

Hello, I can't understand if it's possible to animate the model, after this type of automatic retopology :/

[@grabbitt]

you must rig

[@elisafantini9022]

@@grabbitt but after retopology, right? I'm sorry but I'm new with all of this

[@shubhamshetkar4406]

Instant meshes is good for 2 million polygon models to few hundread or 1000 polygons?

[@grabbitt]

I'm not sure some people have said that it is capable of a very large amount but i have not had the same success

[@fgc_7433]

I know this is an old post and I might not get a response but I tried to use instant mesh and it breaks my mesh. What should I do?

[@grabbitt]

probably remove doubles and check normals

[@vidyaWolf]

Why doesn't blender support such a feature out of the box? Wouldn't it be rather easy to implement with all the expertise the blender team has? Did they figure there's no need to include it when others already do it and better or what is the reason? I don't know much about 3d modeling, so everytime I come across this topic I see either "do it by hand" or "use some external tool X".

[@grabbitt]

yes it would be nice

[@Blue_snapdragons]

Does this preserve UV maps?

[@grabbitt]

I don't think so but I did not try it after unwrapping

[@MrMadvillan]

Anyone stress tested this software ? I just tried to upload a 1gig model and it just hangs

[@grabbitt]

A 1 gig model??? that seems a bit over kill. My models often have 2 million faces but are only 50mb or something like that

[@MrMadvillan]

thanks for the input! yes 1gih is a lot tho not unreasonable for 3d scans. I’m looking for a solution to retopo 3d scans from agisoft and would like to avoid the zbrush dynamesh step.

[@grabbitt]

@@MrMadvillan ah I see yes I'm not sure of the best software for that type of thing

[@jaredturner2156]

@@grabbitt I think it may be a pc thing just from 1st impression, I had no problem loading a 928mb Engine from a photogrammetry scan. Love this tool near instant 235k poly down to 8.6k. Works great

[@grabbitt]

@@jaredturner2156 that's very good

[@matarloum2894]

WHYY i discover you only now ???!???

[@vishals1154]

Does it available for 32bit processors

[@grabbitt]

Not sure

[@RomboutVersluijs]

Cool thing, i thought you were using the blender addon for this.

[@grabbitt]

yes apparently there is a addon now but not tried it yet :)

[@RomboutVersluijs]

@@grabbitt i just did, but haven read anything about this app. So i dont know what im doing hahahaha

[@RomboutVersluijs]

ALso found a method to get it working on OSX. Because it was crying about a minimum version to open it. when i check the app content and open the unix app inside, it simply does open and no crying ;) hahaha

[@RomboutVersluijs]

Wow the addon is so much easier. No need to finic around with all kinds of settings. What would nice is if we had grease pencil to control the flow :)

[@ABMultimediaDesigner]

is Instant Meshes free to use?

[@grabbitt]

yes

[@fanli5184]

can it make symmetry mesh?

[@grabbitt]

Not that I know of

[@fanli5184]

@@grabbitt got it, thx for replying anyway fam!

[@neshiah4747]

Process is excellent…until I try opening up the model back in Blender - which it won’t do 😕

[@grabbitt]

did you include the obj extension

[@neshiah4747]

@@grabbitt I typed .obj as the extension. Is that correct - and thanks for replying 🙏

[@eblgraphics]

My mesh comes out broken...

[@grabbitt]

You may need to check it for errors before you send it there

[@rasoolrahnavard2570]

wow your voice is Doublage voice 👌 :)

[@hufrodo]

Dude, it's very far to consider a retopology

[@grabbitt]

Not sure I understand. Do you mean the term retopology should not be used?

[@francez123456789]

instant mesh doesnt do a good job...

[@hitdogreport4619]

fairly straight forward, huh?? whatever... foh

[@grabbitt]

I'm enjoying your comments :) my newer courses tend to be easier to follow :)

[@hitdogreport4619]

@@grabbitt LOL... i appreciate your reply. figured it out...btw.... looking at something for hours that should take minutes can be daunting..... peace

[@thiagoc4358]

Thank You so much!!

[@grabbitt]

😃