Hello a question for the community.
Which addon for Blender in terms of retopology can you recommend to me? Which add on would be worth buying?
Thanks for your feedback!
This one is very good → https://blendermarket.com/products/speedretopo
This one is probably the best → https://blendermarket.com/products/retopoflow
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Hey Safetyman, thanks for the quick answer. I’m working with Speedretopo at the moment, and I think it’s quite good. however, it seems to take me a long time, and I may not know all the functions yet.
I’ve also heard about retopoflow, so I’ll probably be allowed to spend money on it at some point in the future.
What do you think of this programme? Is it much better than speedretopo?
Thank you
You can try PolyQuilt. It’s free and powerful.
Video guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuYAa8AFRAs
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Retopoflow is a set of tools on its own. There are a lot great features. In Blender I think you wind up using a lot of different techniques to get the job done including shrink wrap and just normal modeling tools. For Blender retopoflow should be in your tool kit for sure. Unfortunately there is no one tool does it all for Blender like there is in Maya. So we still use Maya a lot for that. But I can see this changing over time.
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Thanks for your quick reply, I’ll take a look.
Thank you for your feedback.
I used to work a lot with Maya but didn’t use it for Retopology.
At the moment I have to watch the money, so Maya is out of the question for now.
So far I am very enthusiastic about Blender, a lot of good development has happened here!
I will certainly buy Retopoflow as well.
Thank you!
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Indeed! Blender is on the way up and it is a good investment of time because it is just going to keep evolving into something better at a rate much faster than anything else as far as I can see. Maybe with the exception of Houdini.
I am surprised that not a lot of people use Draw Xray with snap on option ( https://gumroad.com/l/draw_xray )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn50g2aJJ0Y
I have used an older version of retopoflow before, but for me Draw Xray is the best retopo addon. use it in combination with other addons is a breathe. not to mention its low price point $6 compare to other paid ones.
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I find it exciting to see how many addons there are.
However, it is not clear from the short video where the advantages of the addon are and what else it can do. At the moment it doesn’t convince me…are there better descriptions and video tutorials?
Thanks for your feedback
ok, the advantage of the addon itself:
- retopo shader. other addons like speedretopo use “in- front” when viewing the retopo mesh, it is good, but for more complex mesh, it quickly becomes very messy as the " in- front" display method lack of back face culling. draw xray has a shader fix that. also it has a free version includes the shader.
- vertex position. again I will compare with speedretopo. when use operators like insert loop, extrude etc. the newly created verts usually does not follow the high poly surface. the shrink wrap modifier make it appears on the surface, you often have to manually move the new vert in order to snap to surface. draw xray ( paid version) handle the vert snapping automatically.
- ability to use with other addons. retopoflow it very powerful with its own set of tools, but I like the freedom to set my own hotkeys, along with several addons functions. such as F2 to fill, fill hole, extrude to cursor, smooth vert, looptools’ edge funcstions and many more.
as a former maya user, I like the maya retopo environment and the quad draw function and such. after switching to blender, I tried several retopo options with mixed feelings, but since I used draw xray, I feel that doing retopo in blender is so much better compare in maya.
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Hi sleeplessmind,
thank you for your detailed answer!
I can’t say much about 1. right now, I think I know what you mean but it doesn’t bother me yet.
2. hmm i think speedretopo has a lot of good functions and yes some of them don’t work very well. i believe you that draw xray is a good function but what else can the tool do besides drawing single quads manually? I think that’s a little low for a retopo tool.
3. thank god i never did retopo in maya. But I’ll keep your point in mind and see how I juggle the addons and which one ends up being the best for my workflow.
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Draw xray is literally just the shader, and optionally an automatic way of applying a shrinkwrap. It’s great, but what about it suggests that you need to choose one and only one? Draw xray improves the visualisation, and you can then use any tool you like, including all of the ones that Speedretopo uses (which are all built-in or freely available addons).
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It is like I said before. There is no real one tool for all retopo like it is in Maya. Maya has the shader and everything built in. But in Maya you have to exit out of the tool to use other plugins or Maya modeling features. And the same is true with Blender. But in Maya you can simply spend most of the time in the Modeling Toolkit to do most of your re-topology.
Blender has the advantage that if you are working in a Blender pipeline you don’t have to export and import. And also it has, generally, a better modeling environment and tools.
The downside is you have to jump around more. I think retopoflow has figured out the shading. So that is a good start. Retopoflow also makes a lot of the time-consuming tasks much faster. And it has several tools in one environment which is good.
There are other tools that will help such as Quad Remesher and others. Sometimes you don’t want to retopo by hand and you can remesh. (such as Zremesher in Zbrush).
Sometimes you want to use array or curve modifier. The more complex the original model the more variations in technique you need to save time.
This character example is what I am talking about in terms of variation of complexity and tools needed. It started out as a Zbrush sculpt.
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oh so it’s only about one shader and i can combine it with the other addons.
I was wondering…because I originally asked for a good retopology tool.
But great, then I understand that now!
Hi Richard,
Thank you for your detailed answer.
I admit I haven’t got to know the modelling environment and all the tools in Blender yet. But so far I am positively surprised by Blender, it has developed very well.
I don’t find the Zremesher so good in Zbrush to get a clean mesh and to get the contours exactly where I need them.
Your modelled head looks really good - good work!
I still find it a pity that the workfow needs so many different programs.
At the moment I only work with Zbrush and Blender, I can’t afford Maya right now. At that time I only used Maya for modelling, I have to say I just couldn’t cope with the renderer. I hope Blender will do a better job.
Since you say you like modelling and doing the retopo in Blender, can I ask you how you go about modelling a mirrored body/head etc? This active mirror tool - does it do anything? And where do you join the body halves? - in Zbrush or Blender? I often switch between Zrbsuh and Blender with my modelled body and try to get the best workflow…
Maybe you can help me?
We only use Zremesher for very organic shapes. Never for a part of the model that need explicit topology like hands and heads and body.
I would suggest bring your more specific modeling questions to the support forums. But the mirror modifier is good tool for anything that needs symmetry.
We also go back and forth between Blender and Zbrush frequently. Whatever is the tool to get the job done.
Notice I keep saying we. I don’t do much modeling work anymore. I trained my team so I could focus on other things.
So support forums will get you people who are currently working on this daily. And those people don’t often come to the general threads.
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thank you for your effort, i will post my questions in the support forums soon. It takes me some time to find my way around this website.
Have a nice day!
I love Draw XRay, but sadly it crashes Polyquilt.
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