retopo in 2.5

[Liquidape]

this is my pet peeve since sculpt and retopo were introduced.
If they don’t add occluding backfaces in 2.5, I’ll probably put my money somewhere else,
if u watch my time lapse videos you’ll see how fast I am, current mesh drawing in wireframe multiplies my time to completion by 10x.

I need a mesh I can read if I can realistically continue using blender in my workflow.

Love you Blender;

Uhg, I ran into this issue just last night…it really is painful without the occude background geometry working.

[Bao2]

Start working on a high poly sculpt, activate retopo and start modeling the new geometry for the low poly in wireframe mode. Now have your new mesh encapsulate the entire sculpt. If you select occlude backfaces or not, backfaces are still visiblen in wireframe mode as illustrated by my example.

Yes I also desire they fix it. I didn’t tried in 2.5 but I suppose it is the same that in 2.49. A workaround would be H to hide the faces of behind you don’t want to see while working in the front ones. Or separate the low mesh in two objects: front one and back one and working in each one.
I was saying that talking about putting your money in other place is not the way to talk to the developpers of Blender. If you feel right that way I don’t agree with you in that.

I use blender to make a portion of my living.

It is only my hobby so I can understand your frustration on this point then. The only workaround for now seems what I said above, hide the faces or separate the mesh in different objects.

You should check out my technique in my head modeling tutorial, you’ll see where I am coming from. And it may also help you with your workflow.

Certainly I will take a look on it. I also use sculpt but more on the mesh I am creating as a correct tool than creating a “zbrush like mesh” and then retopologize it. I will take a look on your videos.

[pencil-head]

Hey SeanJM im with you man. I’ve been bitching about this to matt (ebb) ever since he introduced me to blender. It’s my only real legit complaint about blender. EVERY other 3d program has wireframe culling except blender. Want to know something even more frustrating. Go into sculpt mode, turn on partial redraw then go into wireframe mode. OMG wireframe backface culling, why can’t we have that in edit mode? So anoying.:surprised

EDIT: That applies for 2.49 havn’t play much with 2.5 yet.

[dac77]

I am not absolutely sure why you need wireframe culling, but to my best knowledge no 3D package have real wireframe culling. They just have kind of shaded view with drawn wire but without diffuse nor specular shading, and it is slower than wireframe. One can always use special shadeless material in glsl textured view with additional wire rendering. I suppose so, maybe, although probably not…=)

[stargeizer]

Wireframe culling is needed for retopo so you can work on the mesh IN FRONT OF YOU rather o try to diferentiate the mesh retopologized BEHIND THE HI-RES SCUPTED MODEL. Is pretty clear once you see the example provided by SeanJM. Of course die-hard modellers don’t have major problems with that, but still is an anoyance.

[dac77]

Yes, I see the point now. If you use wire you have to see also bakfaces, and in shaded view you not always see frontfaces, so you have too turn off backfaceculling, but then again you see backfaces.
Maybe they should do something like showing lines of backfaces partially transparent or in different color more in the background color direction. If think it was possible in XSI. As for now alt-B may be some partial solution to problem although not very efficient if one is in a hurry.

[SeanJM]

The backfaces shouldn’t be visible at all–not even a hint, it’s all distraction even it looks cool.

Anyways, I hope they add that option…

[stargeizer]

About the VBO’s problem with selecting edges… Brecht Van Lommel fixed this in SVN. (For windows, the newest at the moment is rev. 25867).

Happy 2.5 testing.

[ysvry]

that being able to extrude on a mesh, and the other editing was the best way to use retopo anyway, draw was always putting the geometry where you didnt want it and that made it useless. I say put the old mode back in and skip retopo draw.

[phil3d]

In 2.49 and 2.5

You CAN see all the edges in shaded mode by turning on “all edges” Since this works much better then trying to retopo over just the wireframe, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.

In 2.49 and earlier the button is in “mesh tools more” which is only available in edit mode.

[stargeizer]

Rotate the view 180º. You’ll see the retopoed mesh even when the mesh is BEHIND your subsurfed(?) mesh. That’s the problem. The idea is that the sursufed mesh can effectively HIDE the mesh being retopologized.

You can hide the mesh with the oclude button, but it will also oclude the mesh you are retopologizing in the mesh in front of you.

Since in this case an image just don’t worth a million words, a simple video maybe can…

http://www.vimeo.com/8790166

Note that we rotate the view, the mesh that is supposed should be hidden is not. Of course one can activate the oclusion button, but it will also interfere with your work as seen in the video. This is the “Retopo Hell” as described by SeanJM. (For me is just an anoyance, but as usual with everyting, YMMV).

[phil3d]

So just hide the mesh you do not want to view using shift “h” Is this really such a big deal?

I was under the impression that the issue was with the mesh being retopoed. At least that’s what it looks like in the previous screenshots by SeanJM

Ahh, I see that IS the retopo… so again what’s wrong with hiding?

Yes it would be nice to have a combo of back-face culling WITH x-ray. But I don’t personally find it to be such a doom and gloom scenario as has been posted.

It will be interesting to see if this get’s addressed as part of the Durian project.

[stargeizer]

Indeed it is (Not talking about the doom/gloom scenario, talking about the mesh). In the video the mesh that always is visible is the mesh being retopo’ed.

Shift H/ Alt H is a workaround, but is pretty anoying to use with retopo and non symetric organic characters or character of certain sizes (think animals or the next abomination in the big next horror movie). For human heads is not much of a deal, just turn off some geometry (half the geometry to be exact) and continue do the retopo, (ears can be anoying also, but not much IMHO) but the ideal is to make the geometry hide behind the original so you can focus in the mesh and not in workarounding a limitation, IMHO.

As i say before, for me is nothing more than an anoyance, so i can live with it, and not a showstopper, but not everyone would agree with this, or with the fact that is not a big deal anyway. (which i partially agree).

And talking about anyways… is 4:02 AM where i live and my english is not good at this time… maybe i need some sleep

Have a nice day.

[phil3d]

Looks like it’s possible and easy to work around this in 2.5 - Some negatives still, so I’ll still be hoping for a better solution.

[MmAaXx]

I tthink is better 2.49b for modeling, also for retopo and baking. 2.5 is still in alpha and they are concentrate on new API, and render branch now.

[Mordachai]

Retopo: Surface Sketch it’s already (and officially) in the Add-Ons. Video tutorial here. There is no need to install anymore, look in User Preferences >> Add-Ons (catch a new build in graphicall)

The ‘backface showing’ it’s REALLY a problem. Even with surface sketch + shrinkwrap there is a lot of trouble because Blender shows the entire mesh when x-ray it’s activated. Some option to occlude this faces sure will be cool. But do not expect too much in the moment.

All the modelling tools in 2.5 are suffering because of the delay in BMesh. There is no meaning in port all the commands and tools since the bmesh code will change a lot of things. Actually make changes in the code right now will make the port more difficult later.

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