Change List

This document contains details about what has changed in Retopoflow in version 4.

4.1.3

• Fixed issue with PolyPen freezing when operating on loose edges
• Fixed issue with faces flipping when using proportional editing

4.1.2

• Added option to constrain new knife cuts to the UI
• The status bar hotkeys now correctly show customized hotkeys
• Added hotkeys, Shift P and Alt P, for pinning and unpinning
• Pinned verts are now skipped by default by the clean up operator
• Fixed issue with verts interpolated from pins unable to be unpinned

4.1.1

• Masking and pinning options are now shared between Tweak and Relax
• The pie menu, documentation, and report issue hotkeys are now customizable
• The default hotkey for reporting an issue is now Alt F1
• Fixed issue with starting Retopoflow 4.1 in Blender 4.5
• Fixed issue with starting Retopoflow 4.1 in Blender 4.2

4.1.0

New:

• Significantly improved knifing in PolyPen
  • You can now make cuts across multiple faces
  • PolyPen can now automatically adds quad junctions when cutting between adjacent edges on a quad
  • You can now add any number of cuts into the middle of a face and it will split when you connect to the other side
  • New knife points on edges are now correctly constrained to the edge
  • You can now start a cut from a selected edge without needing to fist insert a point
• Tweak and Relax are now sensitive to pen pressure
• Tweak and Relax now have a pinning system
  • You can either add pins yourself or use attributes like seams or sharp edges
• Added new Topo Rotate operator (Alt R) for rotating selected topology in place
• Loop selection in Retopoflow now ends at inner corners by default in Blender 5.1+
  • We added the option for this and other loop delimiters to Blender 5.1 thanks to your support!
• Fill Region is now disabled when picking shortest path (Ctrl Shift LMB) in Retopoflow
  • The Loop and Shortest Path default adjustments can be disabled in the Tool Switching preferences if needed
• Added preference for W pie menu to work from any tool or only Retopoflow tools
• Blender’s Status Bar now displays full hotkey hints for all tools
• Added preset themes for the retopology overlay
  • The new default is Blue for improved accessibility (and vibes)
  • You can use any custom theme you have set in Blender by setting the theme to “Blender”
• Added ability to change vert and edge thickness while using Retopoflow
  • Thew new default is 4px for verts and 2px for edges for improved clarity
• Added warning for Windows tablet users if they are using WindowsInk drivers
  • WindowsInk can currently cause some lag spikes in recent Blender versions, even without Retopoflow

Improved:

• Relax initialization and acceleration structure building is now up to 5x faster
• Contours is now about 2x faster
• Added retopology overlay offset to tool header
• Added mirror modifier merge distance to Mirror panel
• Deleting faceless edges is now off by default in the Cleanup operator
• Unused outer Contours sample points are no longer shown when using Walk or Skip
• Fixed PolyPen and Strokes not being able to extrude from a line of symmetry
• Fixed Relax crash when a vertex has invalid coordinates
• Fixed Tweak and Relax not using masking settings when using the quick switch hotkeys
• Fixed Contours crash when cutting a singular face that is behind the source mesh
• Fixed Contours breaking with a vector subtraction error in rare situations
• Fixed Contours breaking with a matrix error in rare situations
• Fixed Contours getting twisted on certain shapes
• Fixed issue when cancelling a Contours cut with a right click
• Fixed issue with mirroring on the -Y and -Z axis in Polystrips
• Fixed crash when a source object is a curve with a geometry nodes modifier that has no output
• Fixed Fade Inactive not turning on when tool switching
• Fixed wireframe mirror display mode in Blender 5.0
• Fixed issue with enabling the add-on with certain graphics drivers
• Fixed small memory leak in custom overlays

4.0.2

• Added option to only snap to selected objects
• Added support for Blender 5.0

4.0.1

• Fixed issue with detecting user keymaps

4.0.0

Retopoflow 4 is officially released!

New:

• Added Shift hotkey for moving in small increments while tweaking
• Added preference to disable warning that shows when starting Retopoflow without a source

Improved:

• The W pie menu now works when a non-Retopoflow tool is selected
• Improved Relax strength factor
• Tweak and Relax now treat edges between visible and hidden faces as a boundary
• Improved drawing from the line of symmetry in PolyStrips
• Added preset support to Clean Up operator
• Added PolyStrips and Strokes mirroring options to Mirror panel
• Fixed PolyStrips width when the retopo object has non-uniform scale
• Fixed PolyStrips creating sharp angles when the stroke is smooth but the source has sharp angles
• Fixed issue when deleting source objects while Retopoflow is running
• Fixed Strokes and PolyPen being able to snap to hidden vertices
• Fullscreening an area is now blocked since it can cause a crash on some machines
  • We will restore this functionality once we find a full fix

4.0.0 beta 7

New:

• Retopoflow can now use non-mesh objects like curves and NURBS as sources as long as they have evaluated faces
• The existing faces are no longer selected after using PolyStrips to bridge
• Added RK4 as a new iteration method for Relax
  • RK4 is significantly more stable overall but may apply too much or too little strength in some cases
• Added preferences for disabling the help and pie menu hotkeys

Improved:

• Fixed random crashing in Strokes and PolyStrips in Blender 4.5
• Fixed occasional flipped normals in Contours
• Fixed several smaller issues

4.0.0 beta 6

New:

• Added preferences for what to name newly created retopology objects
• Added limits to how far Relax can move geometry as a percent of the brush radius
• Added option to apply retopology settings to non-Retopoflow tools
• Added option to revert retopology settings if they were applied to non-Retopoflow tools
• Added option to reset all Retopoflow tool settings

Improved:

• Improved drawing PolyStrips across and along the line of symmetry
• Increased default vertex selection distance in response to feedback
• Fixed PolyPen crash when closest edge has zero length
• Fixed PolyStrips crash when bridging two faces that share a vertex
• Fixed info menu icon missing in Blender 4.2
• Fixed twisting in Relax when rotation was not applied
• Re-enabled Face Angles and Face Radius in Relax by default
• Fixed crash when toggling maximize area
• Fixed issue when switching workspaces into Retopoflow
• Fixed retopology overlay not being enabled in all 3D Views in the workspace
• Fixed issue when packaging Retopoflow using Blender’s extension build command

4.0.0 beta 5

New:

• You can now draw across the symmetry line in PolyPen, Contours, and PolyStrips

Improved:

• Fixed issue with Blender 4.5 on Mac

4.0.0 beta 4

New:

• Added quick hotkeys for Tweak and Relax
  • Shift drag for Relax
  • Ctrl Shift drag for Tweak
• Added option to use Blender’s native transform to the Tweaking panel
  • Allows snapping to the edges and verts of the source object
  • Allows all bonus features like edge slide and constraints
  • Great for low poly or hard surface objects but not for high poly organic sculpts
• Strokes now takes into account the line of symmetry when a mirror is enabled
  • New options for behavior at the line of symmetry and determining which side is being mirrored
• PolyStrips has a new stroke preview that shows the width of the resulting strip.

Improved:

• Fixed issue with Tweak and Relax not working when the retopo object scale was extreme
• Fixed issue with transforms not working when the retopo object was not at world origin
• Fixed crash when restoring factory defaults while Retopoflow is enabled

4.0.0 beta 3

New:

• A Mirroring panel with quick actions was added to the tool settings
• There is now a warning if entering Retopoflow when no sources are detected
• You can now control the merge distance of the Strokes brush

Improved:

• All tools now use Face Nearest snapping by default
• Masking corners in Tweak and Relax now respects concave corners
• The Tweak and Relax brush falloff control is now much more user friendly
• Strokes bridges can now be untwisted in edge cases where they are twisted
• Improved visualization for proportional editing
• Fixed several issues with mirror modifier clipping
• Fixed conflict with keymaps that use Ctrl LMB Drag as box or lasso select
• Fixed case where Relax would mangle n-gons if they had multiple sides on a boundary
• Fixed case where Relax would affect vertices outside of the brush
• Fixed Strokes merge circle sometimes highlighting when the result would not be merged
• Fixed Retopoflow exiting when maximizing the 3D View

4.0.0 beta 2

New:

• Contours can now extend from the correct boundary regardless of which loop is selected
• Improved Relax performance
• Disabled Relax Face Radius and Face Angles options by default since they are not always stable
• Renamed Stroke Smoothing to Stabilize to match Blender’s term
• Added Stabilize control to Strokes
• F1 now opens documentation and F2 reports an issue

Fixed:

• Fixed crash when a conflicting add-on listens for mesh changes and frees bmesh while we’re using it
• Fixed issue with flipped normals when the retopology object’s origin is far away

4.0.0 beta 1

Retopoflow 4 is a complete rewrite of Retopoflow that massively improves performance and integrates the tools directly into Blender’s Edit Mode.

Some key changes include:

• General
  • The tools are now in the Edit Mode toolbar
  • Ctrl scroll is now used instead of Shift scroll for adjusting insert count
• Contours
  • A new Fast method was added, which can improve performance on dense meshes and work in some cases where the mesh is split
• PolyStrips
  • Proportional Editing can now be used for smoothly affecting the surrounding geometry while adjusting existing strips
  • The angle at which new strips are split to create sharp corners can now be specified
  • Strip spacing is now calculated in world space
• Strokes
  • Several new stroke shapes are now supported so drawing new geometry feels more natural
  • Extrudes can now match the curvature of the original geometry if the method is set to Adapt
  • A smoothing control has been added for naturally blending between strokes created at different angles
  • The new default insert count, Average, always creates perfectly even quads when extruding