04.02 Retopology with Polyquilt in Blender

Press shift A create an empty mesh object. need an empty mesh object to be able to use retopology tool, poly quilt tab and edit mode. Then up at the top make sure you turn on retopology. This allows you to see low poly mesh on top of your scan or high poly model. change the snap base to face We can select the PolyQuilt tool down here on the lower left. And if I select tool you can see the different default parallel. when I draw my clods they’ll be parallel to each other. But we can change these. Also nice as we can turn on mirroring. can start with vertex, if I look at the side of the eye here, going to to get into the detail. But if I just start thinking about this first side of the eye being one big square, I can just press shift and fill in that quad. Then I can draw two more points here make another quad. Divide the I kind of in half this way, then come all the way over to the edge. here I want to go ahead and divide this once right here. Put two points right on the edge of the eye here to start to make that turn. then I’m really going to simplify everything by going way up high and just filling the squad from here to here. This may not fill in automatically. So I can drag this up. then you see the little white circle will snap together. I can then snap this by pressing the shift key. I can reposition these vertices just a little bit. Basically we want to kind of get that main structure of the eye.

We’re not too concerned about the actual details because we can add additional edge loops later. We just want to get the main structure. So that way we have the supporting loops that we need later when we make a high poly model. this looks pretty good to me. have plenty of structure for the eye loop, we can check that by pressing control. You can see is a complete loop. Next we’ll go ahead and make a loop goes around the nose and the mouth. can do that first by extending this over to the middle. And you can see that it snaps together. Fine. then I can bring a polygon down right down the bottom of the nose here. I’m going to extend this to go all the way around the eye. We want kind of like a sleep mask going around the eye. So I can press shift and click here. Add a vertices where you think that needs to be and quickly just work around the eye. We’re making basically an eye mask. can click a vertices here and then finally fill in this in the middle. if I hold Ctrl you can see I have a loop that’s kind of going around like Batman or a superhero.

Don’t worry about everything clipping through. We can always add edge loops as we go. we’ll go ahead and make part that goes all the way around the nose and mouth. So I’ll click points right here. And sometimes with mirror mode your face might not be in the middle. So just drag those you see them snap. Hold shift. now we’re going to start. After one more connection we’ll start the turn down. going to bring this one pretty far down. now I can draw. Two vertices right here. Connect this. And I want to get this next set of vertices kind of where the mouth is. we kind of have coming down both sides of the face. we’re going to make big broad strokes. We’ll come all the way over to here. then we’ll just finish this off in the middle. now we have a loop going around nose in the mouth.

And again we’re not worried about the detail. We’re trying to get the broad strokes. As you see here, have everything mapped out around the nose and mouth. go ahead and add a loop going around the nose so we can just drag this down like this. Click a vertices right here. we’re ready to actually branch off into the loop. And for now I’m just going to keep it simple with a full division there. We’re going to need to add more as we add divisions to the mouth. I can press Ctrl and add a division there and then move these around. So now we have a loop going all the way around the nose like that. Then we can add loops going around the nostrils. right here on this second one from the center I’ll just bring this down. And then this is going to be the loop going around the nostril. So I’ll click a vertices here. Click one here. you can see now this is going to make a loop going around. Continue working your way around the bottom of the nostril there. can click a point in the middle here then close off those quads there. As we come down click one point there. Those are now closed.

So now we just need to close this loop around the nostril. Sometimes it can be a bit stubborn. So now if I press control you can see I have loops around the nostrils. Now I need to extend this loop down to here. I’ll also need extra geometry because you can see I have too many points be able to get everything to go down. So I’ll just press control I’ll split this. So now I can bring this geometry. Down. To finish off everything, click a vertices, join those together, and then join those together. And then sometimes it doesn’t snap. So just move it so it snaps. now we have a loop going around actual knows.

If I hold Ctrl you can see going around the nose and going around the nostrils, going around the mouth and nose and going around the eyes and the eye mask. let’s go ahead and add a loop going around the mouth. going to keep this simple, just like all the other forms. kind of want to think about where the other points are. So I’m going to go ahead and draw in points right here. Hold shift. Connect those, connect those. then now I’m going to move all the way across to the edge of the mouth over here. Connect those. then this is basically the turn. And we’re going to make a big broad stroke because we can always add in more later. Sometimes that may not turn on the way you want it to. So we can just zoom in. with the quilt tool, we can drag this out by clicking that arrow and snapping to that vertices and then to this one. Then once again we’ll just drag these over to the middle. You can see how those points are going to line up with the rest. filled in those. And we’re still working our way around the face. We just need to join these up. You can see this is going to join up fine right here by holding shift. now I can hold shift here and here. now I have all of the bottom of the face.

Now of course we’re going to need more polygons to finish off this entire model. the goal again is just to get that first pass around. So then we can use subdivision and edge loops to make our model great. I’m going to pull this down right here make a loop all the way around the bottom of the face. And this one wants to end kind of at the same point as this. towards the hair. And we’re working our way all the way around the top of the face. So this has to line up here, just kind of keep track of how many edge loops you have. If you make a mistake, just add or delete some now you can see that this loop goes all the way around the face. If I hold control we can see that going there. So we have the face loop. We have a mouth loop. have a nose in mouth loop right here we have nostril loops, individual nose loop, an eye mask loop. And then the individual I loops. So we’re doing really great. Now we just need to fill in these sections right here. Some of these are pretty obvious. Like is going to be right here. Hold shift. why the quilt tool and blender is great for re topology. Hold shift. So now we just need to fill in this section here one two. Three. So now the whole model is filled in.

If I click off this model can see that we have all quads going around the face. it’s very easy with regular blender tools to just put as many edge loops in as I want, then I can add more geometry. That way we can also add a modifier. Subdivision surface, and as we subdivide this you can see it will get more and more detail. want to work low poly. And then that way we can switch to high poly with subdivision surface and then add different constraints and move the vertices around. So hopefully this gets you to a very nice read topology of a face that you can use to continue modeling. Now it’s just a matter of in setting different faces and adding edge loops to continue your model around.

This is a really great way to make structures for masks and 3D printing on top of human faces. Have you read Topology and Happy 3D modeling.