Right, but when you are done with the retopology, you’d to convert it to a normal mesh. They’d have to build in some extra steps for “finalizing” the retopology job.
The way I envision it, you would just have a few extra steps before starting. When you are done sculpting you would hit shift + A > select the retopo object > then you would click the object you sculpted as a retopo target (like the eye dropper tool). It would start in “retopology mode”, so you’d immediately be able to start working. When you are done you’d have a button on the object tab (or maybe an option in the mode selection menu) for converting it into a normal mesh.
The retopo mesh object would just have two modes (object mode, and retopo mode). The retopo mode could be tweeked to make the most sense for retopology. Any tools from edit mode that are useful could go there, special curves you can adjust that can be converted to quads, grease pencil lines that turn into surfaces, anything that makes sense when building topology could go there.
I don’t see it being limited for having edit mode tools. Are you saying thered be redundant options on the retopology stuff, so those settings would be removed?
This is not an issue. There’s no such thing as overflowing a mode with tools.
With this line of thinking we’ll end up with hundreds of modes in blender in the future. lol
Yea, exactly. I would want this new object type to be what houses the new mode. The way envision it, it would be less complicated because you are semi-prompted when you add the object type (needs you to select a retopo target). I think if it’s going to be a mode, that is the best way to do it.
If they just add some new tools to edit mode, then they’ll have to put in some easy way to setup your retopo object (maybe something like quick fur).
But once you convert the object to a mesh then, you’re done. You can’t go back and use the retopo tools once you start using the modeling tools and apply UV’s, materials, ect…
Unless of course you convert it back, but then you might lose the UV’s and other data. My ideal workflow of the future would be a way to change your mind on anything at any step in the process rather than being forced to make something final before the next step.
i don’t know what goes under the hood but i think the benefit of having a retopo mode is that will have a dedicated workspace for it and does everything for you like i said including entering and exiting mesh u don’t need an eye dropper tool or a button…etc and going back to retopo is merly selecting the retop’ed mesh and entering the mode or just switching to it’s workspace, simple & easy.
Retopo tools create a mesh in the end. They should work on Mesh objects. It’s only logical.
I’m not terribly keen on having a new mode for retopo. I’d prefer to just have these tools in edit mode, perhaps with a special retopo viewport setting (like lookdev).
The thing about retopologizing objects is that you don’t always strictly want to adhere to the surface of the high poly object. Besides sticking to the high poly, they also need to be not messy. You just can’t do that when you have a special mode that assumes all verts will be on the surface of the HP mesh.
That’s why I don’t like retopo in 3d-coat and such.
To support retopology, we need
A different way to handle snapping
A different way to select what is the source and target
A different way to display overlay meshes
A different set of higher level tools to do things like draw on the mesh to define topology, or other higher level tools
If we were to try and make this work inside Edit Mode, my prediction is that we won’t be able to make somethings as slick or advanced.
I also think that it is better to have retopology in a separate mode. Adding this kind of tools to edit mode will require them to control the selection mode, overlays and scene snapping configuration. The UI and the code are going to be a mess.
this is from the dev, i know the devs don’t like adding modes settings and options so this must a be a technical burden, and like i said if it’s just in edit mode you won’t get advanced features in there they’ll be just basic.
The thing is there is one object, but it has to house the mesh data from both the high poly sculpt and the retopo job you’ve done. How is blender supposed to know which mesh to use for rendering, uv unwrapping, and all of that? If this is a mode that is on all mesh objects, It can’t be as simple as just selecting retopo mode on the mesh and working. You’d have to split the retopologized mesh from the highpoly at some point, or at least set which mesh to use for rendering, or something like that.
You mentioned retopoflow earlier. With a small tweak, the “retopology type” object could work like a more streamlined version of that. With retopo flow you need to make a new object, then make sure the object(s) you are retopologizing is checked as a snap target. Then when you use one of its retopo tools, you go into a special retopo mode. So ok, this “retopo type” object I’m taking about could snap to everything by default, and you could unselect the objects you don’t want it to snap to if needed (A toggle for disabling snapping should still be available). The only difference between how retopoflow works and a retopology object that needs a target is how snapping would be handled.
The tools you have while in retopo-mode could work however they need to, and finalizing it shouldn’t take longer than one click. Heck since this is ultimately mesh data, maybe you won’t need to “finalize” it when you are done (depends on if there are technical challenges that prevent this from working). I would think that at the very least, “finalizing” it could create a copy of the retopo object that is just a normal mesh object, so that you can continue to make adjustments to the retopo object later.
When your starting retopo for the first time how do you go into retopo edit mode Vs edit mode ?
The only way this can happen is
1- add a retopo object and then press key
shortcut for edit ( that’s what happens with
grease pincel)
2 - add it as another mode with just a
different name than edit mode
So a new object types doesn’t solve the problems
A new work spaces may .
I’m not sure they have a way of hiding tools in the toolbar even when your in the context of said tools thought…
The new workspaces are just the old layouts we had + some new options like the ability to filter out addons. I think they’d need to add a lot more to blender in order to make a retopology workspace work as you’d need it to. It’s not necessarily a more clean solution than a special object type. A retopo workspace would need to add a new object that has a subsurf and shrinkwrap modifier on by default. The shrinkwrap would need a target so maybe it would just use the object you last selected, and it would need to support switching between other workspaces without needlessly adding more new objects (maybe it adds some special id to the object it added for tracking?).
The idea I had for a retopo type object would have them start in “retopo-mode” when added, you wouldn’t need to switch them to edit mode (is there a reason they need to start in object mode?), and the snapping and overlay options would be tweaked to work differently for them.
And how do you suppose we cram all of the modes together without things such as 5 layers of menus, extreme scrolling in the properties window, or enough floating windows to easily cover the whole screen?
That is just how to merge them all at the UI level, we haven’t even touched the code level yet (ie. how to ensure every piece of functionality gets preserved). I could see merging the vertex paint and texture paint modes, but that’s just because of their similarities. Anyway, this is for a different thread.
Oh please not another mode, that’s exactly what we don’t need.
What we do need is a solution to the poor design choice of the T-Panel which turned into a poor mans photoshop tool panel which effectively killed all of its usage for non-beginners. And now that the space is filled, not even a couple of retopo tools are fitting in…
We don’t need another mode for something simple as retopo. We rather should think about the general usage of the T-panel.
For me its a waste of space and i’ve never ever used it since I’ve migrated to 2.8.
I am pretty sure if we let this idea of an retopo mode run its course it will be as useful as the T-panel.
to make a whole new design based on what other softwares are doing with topbar with tabs & tools that activates the modes .etc will need another major milestone upgrade, that’s not possible as of right now also from what Pablo said it seems it will make the code a mess, that will be harder for them to track and fix any issues later on.
I would much rather have a separate Retopology Mode rather than having it all baked in into Edit Mode.
Even if you added all the retopology tools needed as just simple tool icons in Edit Mode, problems will start to arise from the very start of the workflow. For instance, how will Edit Mode be able to differentiate between the original mesh/meshes and the new retopology mesh? How will you efficiently make retopology snap to the surface of a selected object and make things more automatic? Where will all the new shortcut keys be added on your keyboard (Edit Mode is already packed with shortcuts)? Etc., etc.
A retopology workflow to me should have these things to be efficient:
It should be able to create a brand new mesh that is able to snap to your selected object/-s automatically or at the press of a button, whether it’s just a vertex, edge, or a face. Right now you have to take several steps to even add a properly aligned face to your object, then use Shrinkwrap to make it fit your model, then add a Subdiv/Multires modifier to be able to preview your high poly retoplogized mesh, and possibly a Mirror modifier if your model is symmetrical. This could be done a lot simpler if you ask me.
You should be able to generate fast loops with X amount of edges and also control the direction they’re going on your mesh. I.e. loops around a wrist, an eye socket, mouth, or other areas where you would expect a loop to be.
A mesh relax tool, which is similar to Dobarro’s new Relax brush in Sculpt Mode. This is to make the final result look as clean as possible without losing the volume itself before the finished topology.
Be able to fast fill in empty areas based on the amount of edge cuts you have, as well as bridge gaps with the options of matching the amount of cuts on each side.
A fast eraser to remove retopology you are unhappy with.
Being able to fast highlight and select areas of your mesh where there are tris, floating vertices, or other types of non-quad faces, so you can fix them if needed. Possibly give them different colours to make them easy to spot.
Toggle visibility of what direction your quad face is going, since it’s divided into two invisible tris, and add the ability to change the direction of this invisible edge to fix potential shading issues.
If you made a brand new Retopology Mode, it would be possible to reduce bloat inside Edit Mode, and also make the process of creating new topology more automatic than it currently is. Plus, you wouldn’t need stuff like vertex select, edge select, and face select in this mode, as well as other tools in Edit Mode, making it far more accessible even to newcomers, if done right.
If it is a mode, I don’t want to see any kind of Retopology mode have to select your high resolution meshes. You should just be able retopo anything that’s currently visible. No screwing around with selecting, merging, parenting, it should be as simple as: Slap stuff together however, enter retopo mode, start drawing strokes or geometry or whatever and they snap to the visible geometry that’s not part of retopo geometry.
