** Note for buyers : 

This tool is still experimental, it is not a perfect product yet. It can only handle simple mesh. 

**

Beta Quad is a retopology tool for selected faces.

You can use it to quick retopology a single ngon face, or use it to retopology a part of your mesh. If you want, you can select all faces and use it.

Usage of Beta Quad :

• Big n-gon Face ==> Small Quads faces (OK)

• Many small faces ==X==> Big Quads (doesn't work)

Note : the original name of this addon is "Alpha Quad" : ) It is renamed to Beta Quad !

This quad retopology is using a originally designed algorithm. I want to make a quad tool that is "respecting the border direction" of an ngon. It is able to create quads that are smoothly following the shape of the original face.

Limitation

This tool has some known limitations :

• The tool keep the original face's edges. It only remesh a face, but it does not "replace" a face. Therefore, it is not good for remesh an whole mesh full of sharp n-gons and bad topology.

• The tool does not work for faces smaller than its quad size. If it is smaller than the size, it will just skip it. Therefore a very high-density of quads is needed. It is not practical for most case.

• Due to the above reason, it does not work for sculpted mesh, or high polygons triangles mesh.

The tool is still under heavy development, so the above limitations may be eliminated in future. However, the goal of this tool is focusing on "selected ngon face".

Python Based

This tool is coded in python. The reason of using python :

• I want to make sure that it is cross platform. Python addons works for Windows, Mac, Linux, etc, without creating C-complied binary executable. It won't suffer from OS platform upgrades. Python work best on all platforms.

• I want to continue the development and further enhance it. Since the code is python, I can roll out new update easily and test it anytime, without compiling.

• If I have bugs in code, some users may read the code and contribute back to me (it happen on my other addons!)

Since the speed of python is slow, it makes the retopology process for complex mesh slow, comparing to other retopology tool on the market. However, the goal of this tool is retopology for "selected face" , so it will not be a problem.

This tool is created without using other commercial or open-source retopology libraries. It is 100% original. I spent few months to design and test the algorithm. If you want to support me, please consider purchasing it, thank you : )

Tips

• Beta Quad has a quad size parameter, it determines the number of quads in the result. Therefore, don't use Beta Quad for very large / very small scaled mesh, otherwise it will fail (it will create millions quads for a face, or not enough space).

• One common usage of Beta Quad is to quick remesh a mesh, then deform it with blender's proportional editing. You can bend the mesh, twist, pull the mesh with smooth surface. (Quads has better smoothness than triangles)

Updates

Version 2.3.0

• Updated to work for Blender 4.0.0 (fixed a bug caused by blender api change)

Version 2.2.1

• Minor bug fix (handling strange or broken faces)

Version 2.2.0

• Now you can keep the edge flow along the boundary (default enabled).

  When using this option, the engine will try its best to keep the edge flow for boundary.

Version 2.1.1

• Fixed a bug for Inset boundary width problem (Ignoring the quad size multiplier)

Version 2.1.0

• Now you can use "Inset boundary" option !

  This option add a very thin supporting edges for boundary. It will keep the border sharp without using mean-crease in sub-division.

  It can be used with "Keep sharp" to create good bevel-looking solid mesh.

Version 2.0.0

• Improved both performance and topology quality.

  Now it has better regulated quads, fewer unexpected strange results.

  Speed improved for many cases.
  

Version 1.3.1 (renamed this project to Beta Quad)

• Due to name collision to some entities on web, to avoid confusion, this addon is renamed to "Beta Quad".

Version 1.3.1

• Fixed a bug that cause the un-selected faces to be affected

Version 1.3.0

• Now works better for extreme ngons shape (eg : strange ngons mesh resulted from boolean, long sharp ngons). In most case, no need to manually fix the strange edges before using the tool now.

Version 1.2.0

• Serious bug found in 1.1.0. It affected the topology quality.

Added a size multiplier for slow fine-tune the quad size !

Fixed the bug for "keep sharp edge". Now the inner quad smooth correctly.

Version 1.1.0

• Improved performance about 20 %

  Improved stability for quad result

Version 1.0.0

• Initial release

Usage

To use Beta Quad,

Switch to Blender Edit mode, select the faces, then right-click > Context menu,

Select Beta Quad from the bottom of the menu.

There are few parameters on the Left-Bottom menu : 

Quad size : it define the quad size of the result. Smaller quad will be slower.

Size Multiplier : it can be used to change the quad size slowly. Its value will be reset every time you use the tool.

Inset Boundary : It add the supporting edges at the boundary. It will make the mesh boundary looks sharp when sub-divided.

Inset Width : the width of inset

Inset sharp angle : It defines the max limit angle for sharp boundary edges

Keep Sharp edge : this option is used for turn off smoothing for sharp edges. It preserve the overall shape of the mesh

Edge Angle : it define the angle of "sharp edge". Angle smaller than this number will not be smoothed.

Support and Contact

Email : [email protected]

Twitter : https://twitter.com/kushirosea