Today we are going to talk about 8 Blender addons for retopology that can help take your projects to the next level. A good retopology is certainly essential for efficient rigging, animation, texturing, and even rendering. But it can often be a tedious chore.
Adding Blender addons for retopology to your set of tools: worth it?
When we take a look at the 3D industry from an efficiency point of view, we’ll see that time occupies an important place. The most important thing is certainly skills, quality and detail, but there’s also the factor of finishing projects in a timely manner. This is exactly the idea that I had in mind when I decided to introduce this list of Blender addons for retopology.
8 – Instant meshes Remesh
This is one of the free Blender addons for retopology that seamlessly integrates the Instant Meshes automatic retopology tool in the software.
As the name suggests, it is an addon to remesh your Models. It can be especially useful when you sculpt. For example, the topology will not look as good as you want it to be so you need to Remesh it. Since these types of add-ons exist I don’t recommend doing retopology manually because it usually takes a lot of time.
Instant Remeshes Remesh allows you to get way better results compared to using the automatic remesh. You can also use the mesh modifier in Blender, but using the add-on is still a better choice.
Addon’s page: https://github.com/wjakob/instant-meshes
7 – Softwrap
This addon has a very different approach compared to the other Blender addons for retopology on this list. Because it works using a soft body simulation engine.
Its soft body simulation engine is non-physically-based and was specifically built for the purpose of retopology. Not to mention that it contains custom dynamics that aim at giving the user control to freely manipulate the mesh. While it automatically snaps onto a sculpture\scan.
Addon’s page: https://blendermarket.com/products/softwrap?ref=247
6 – Tesselator
Tesselator is a good remeshing addon that helps you create regular quad and triangle meshes easily out of sculpts. It can create pure quads, pure triangles, and quad-dominant meshes with high control over the flow.
The way this addon works is interesting. In other words, it’s because you can simulate a particle system that can be guided by grease pencil and form a quad and triangle complex for the final mesh. Even though this concept is simple it is effective and impressive how it is able to properly know how to remesh your sculpts accurately.
Tesselator is one of the best Blender addons for retopology in the market place. Even though it’s not very precise, it performs pretty well for simple models and can create good looking topology. But for now, this addon is only compatible with the 2.8 version.
Addon’s page: https://blendermarket.com/products/tesselator?ref=247
5 – Speedretopo
This a free Blender addon for remeshing your sculpts. Before Starting the Retopology, you can choose which tool to use. Such as Simple Vertex, Bsurface, or Polybuild.
Also, you can add/remove/Update the Modifiers and use the available tools. The add-on creates a mesh, and when you are in the edit mode, you just have to draw Grease pencil lines and click on Add Bsurface.
Speedretopo keeps modifiers ON, like that when you add Bsurface, the vertex are snapped on the reference surface. You can of course delete the modifiers if you want later. Above all, you can also use the mirror tools that allow you to replicated your mesh on the other side in addition to other features.
Addon’s page: https://blendermarket.com/products/speedretopo?ref=247
4 – Retopo MT
This is another entry on the list of Blender addons for retopology that are fully free of charge. It offers nice tools and it works nicely with some others addon too. Its simple approach and tools allow you to create smooth and clean meshes easily.
For example, B-surface style allows you to draw lines or select points to create or generate quad surfaces smoothly. Polygon merging as the name suggests is a tool that allows you to merge the vertex in the circle. Also, there is the Contour style tool that allows you to create retopology meshes around circular meshes very easily.
Addon’s page: https://gumroad.com/l/cngnb
3 – DynRemesh
DynRemesh is a quad-based remesher for Blender. I believe it is really good for assisting in retopology for dyntopo sculpts & 3dscans containing too many triangles.
The UI is simplified to make it clear and easy to perform the necessary steps for quad remeshing automatically. Which is a good thing because no one wants to spend a lot of the limited time we have trying to figure out complex interfaces.
One of the nice things about this addon is that it allows you to have control over density or the number of subdivisions in your mesh. In addition to that, it has a Weight Paint Operator that allows you to Define density with weights.
Furthermore, if you don’t like how a certain part of your mesh looks like you can use some of the addons tools to Relax + Smooth out those parts.
Addon’s page: https://blendermarket.com/products/dynremesh-2?ref=247
2 – Quadwrap
This is another retopology addon for Blender but it can be used to speed up your retopology workflow when working with cylindrical shapes. Such as arms, fingers, legs, horns etc.
So when working with organic models, such as human characters, animals, or creatures in general it will allow you to manually create perfect quads for that shape that can be very time-consuming. But the great thing is that this tool can create & wrap quads around your mesh without effort. Which is just magical as many of you would agree with me.
You probably should consider using this addon because it comes with many nice features. Such as ease of use including easy control over edge loops for instance. In addition to that, the addon will automatically and instantly End Cap Fillings, also Automatic Edge loop Bridging. On the other hand, you can also take advantage of other features as well.
Addon’s page: https://blendermarket.com/products/quadwrap?ref=247
1 – Retopoflow
RetopoFlow is an addon that will help to create smooth, efficient, and effective models for high-quality versions of detailed sculpts. It is actually one of the oldest retopology and remeshing addons that was rebuilt from the ground up.
It does help artists turn sculpting work into models that are good for practical uses with a fairly easy to use kit of tools. From what I have seen this addon can really turn a difficult and technical process of retopology into a smooth, and artistic flow. To clarify, this was achieved after the developers recreated the whole thing to make it better.
This addon comes with many interesting tools such as:
- Contours with which you can quickly place and adjust loops around any cylindrical form.
- PolyStrips allow you to quickly sketch to define your most important loops with the tool.
- Strokes allow you to quickly extend your main loops or define grids in larger areas. You can do this by drawing out a single line that will place a row of selected edges. After that, drawing another stroke roughly parallel to the first.
- The Relax tool will allow you to make your geometry evenly-spaced-quad, which makes the mesh much better.
- In addition to other tools that are part of the Retopoflow toolkit. It definitely makes it one of the best Blender addons for retopology out there.
Addon’s page: https://blendermarket.com/products/retopoflow?ref=247
