Beaver

The Beaver add-on for Blender is a sophisticated tool designed to simplify the process of retopology and texture baking in 3D models. It provides user-friendly options to streamline the control over the complexity of the models while preserving details, and also facilitates efficient texture transfer from one model to another.

Installation

To install the add-on from from the provided ZIP, follow these steps:

1. First, open Blender and navigate to "Edit" -> "Preferences". This will open the Preferences window.
2. In the Preferences window, click on the "Add-ons" tab located on the left side of the window.
3. Now click on the "Install..." button located at the top of the window. This will open a file explorer.
4. In the file explorer, navigate to the location where you saved the beaver.zip file.
5. Click on the beaver.zip file to select it, then click the "Install Add-on" button.
6. After installing, you'll see Beaver in the add-on list. There will be a checkbox next to it. If it's not already checked, click on the checkbox to enable the add-on.
7. If you want the add-on to be enabled every time you open Blender, click on the three lines in the bottom left corner of the "Preferences" window and click "Save Preferences".
8. You've now successfully installed and activated the Beaver add-on. To access it, look for its panel in the "VIEW_3D" space on the right side. Press "N" once or twice until you see the tab in the sidebar.
   

You should now see the user interface. It has two components, one for retopology, one for baking textures.

Retopology

The retopology feature of the Beaver Addon is a toolset that helps in the creation of new, optimized versions of 3D models. Retopology involves the recreation of a model's topology or mesh layout, often to increase efficiency or to create a mesh more suitable for animation. Beaver's retopology tools provide various options for algorithms and settings that allow for the creation of optimized meshes with a specific number of faces, preservation of symmetry or sharpness, or even the collapse of finer details based on user preferences.

Here is an in-depth overview of every part of the retopology panel structured around a typical use-case. Let's consider a scenario where you have a high-poly model and you need to create a lower-poly, optimized version of this model. The rocky.blend file provides the perfect starting point for this. You can use the original and the results to your liking.

1. Algorithm: This setting determines the approach the add-on will use to create a new topology for your model. The default algorithm is Standard, but you can switch to Other for advanced control and other algorithm options. Under Other, the options are Octree, Voxel, and Quadri. Which algorithm performs best for your model is best determined by simply trying the different algorithms. As a rough guide, the Standard algorithm performs best with more intricate models like the statues in the images on the product page. Octree or Voxel are perfect for simpler models like rocks. All algorithms produce mainly quads and only in some more complex cases triangles.
   
2. Resolution/Number of faces: The next setting depends on your chosen algorithm. If Octree or Voxel is chosen under Custom you can specify the Resolution you want for your retopologized model. This requires some intuition or experimentation since this resolution does not directly correspond to a specific number of polygons. In case of the Standard algorithm or Quadri you can set the Number of faces your new model should have. This number has to be doubled if you're counting triangles.
3. Preserve symmetry: If your model is symmetric and you want to keep the symmetry in the retopologized version, enable Preserve symmetry. This option is only available for the Standard and Quadri algorithms.
4. Preserve silhouette: To maintain the silhouette of your model during the retopology process. Disabling this option results in smooth objects, less similar too the original.
   

After adjusting these settings, press Retopologize to see your new model. If it is already to your liking, simply press Apply to commit the changes. Otherwise you can freely adjust the settings and press Retopologize again to update the model. To completely abort the retopologization process, press Cancel to delete the preview model and restore your original model. Alternatively, you can continue optimizing your model.

The second part of the panel usually comes into play when triangles are acceptable, and more heavily optimized meshes are desired. This is often the case for video games for which you want to create multiple versions in different resolutions or secondary, non-character objects in a render. The post-optimization settings are:

1. Force Ratio: If you enable it, the algorithm will attempt to keep only the most important Ratio% of the topology. This percentage is usually not strict and requires experimentation.
2. Use Symmetry: When Force Ratio is enabled, you can also choose to Use Symmetry in your model and select the axis of symmetry. This only maintains symmetry, if only Force Ratio is selected. Otherwise it is very likely that the resulting geometry won't be symmetrical.
3. Collapse Planar: Enable it to remove unnecessary geometry from flat areas of your model. If this option is enabled, you can specify an Angle to control the degree of planarity considered for collapsing.
4. Collapse Details: Allows you to remove finer details from your model to make it more optimized. If enabled, you can control the amount of detail to be removed by adjusting the Size below which vertices will be merged.

As before, it is possible to experiment with different settings and press Optimize to see the updated changes. If you want to undo the optimizations, press Retopologize again. This also means that if you change settings in the first part and then want to see the retopologized model with the optimizations, then you have to press both buttons again.

Baking

If your model comes from a sculpt or 3D-scan, then the original model contains many small details or even color information that is lost during the retopologization process. The next step involves transferring this information with as little loss as possible. This is where the baking panel comes into play.

1. Source and Target: These two properties specify the objects to use for baking. Source is your high-poly model with all the details and Target is the low-poly, retopologized model onto which the details will be baked. Usually there is no need to manually set them, pressing Apply in the retopology panel sets these values appropriately. However, there is no need for either of the objects to come from the retopology process above. You can use the panel for easily baking the textures for any model.
   
2. UVs: This property controls how the UVs of your target model will be generated. You can choose between Manual, where the existing UV map of the object will be used, or you can select Smart UVs, where Beaver will auto-generate a UV map for you. The modes are as follows:
   
3. Smart UVs: If you selected Smart UVs, another menu appears, allowing you to refine how Beaver generates the UV map. You can choose between Auto, Sphere, and Box. If Auto is selected, another property Angle becomes active. These options correspond to Blender's internal unwrapping methods Smart UV Project, Sphere and Box.
   
4. Angle: Available when Smart UVs and Auto are selected, this parameter sets the maximum angle that will be considered flat. Areas with an angle greater than this value will be split into a separate island on the UV map.
5. Resolution: This option adjusts the resolution of the baked textures, given as a power of two. For instance, if Resolution is set to 10, the resolution of your baked textures will be 2^10 = 1024x1024 pixels. The interface displays the actual number of pixels.
   
6. Deviance: This property controls how different the source from the target object is. Usually, a settings of 0.01 works well. However, if the difference between the source resolution and target resolution is great, then the difference between the objects will usually be also great. In these cases a higher number may be required. It is best to experiment with smaller texture sizes until the desired quality is achieved.
   
7. Type: These checkboxes allow you to select which types of textures you want to bake from your source model. You can choose from Color, Normal, Roughness and Ambient Occlusion. To obtain high quality bakes without artifacts, normal maps are baked in object space. This has to be considered when setting up shaders that use baked normal maps, as the mode has to be correctly set.
   

After setting up these properties, simply press the Bake button and Beaver will handle the rest. Once the process is complete, you will have detailed textures that closely resemble your original high-poly model. If you have a UV-Editor open, you will see the last baked texture there. Otherwise, the color texture is named [object_name]_col.png and it can be used in a material just like any other texture.

Upgrading your Beaver Version

Before installing the new version, it's advisable to remove the old version to avoid conflicts:

• Open Blender and navigate to Edit > Preferences.
• Go to the Add-ons tab and search for "Beaver".
• Once you locate the Beaver add-on, click on it to reveal the options.
• Click on the Remove button to uninstall the older version of the add-on.
• Restart Blender, but don't forget to save your progress first!
  

Now install the new version:

• Again in the Preferences window, at the top-right corner, click on Install....
• Navigate to the location where you saved the beaver-newversion.zip file.
• Select the .zip file and click on Install Add-on.
• Once installed, you'll see Beaver listed in the add-ons list. Ensure you enable it by checking the checkbox next to it.

Questions, Bugs and Support

If you encounter any issues or have questions about the Beaver add-on, we are here to help! Here's how you can reach out to us:

1. General Inquiries: For general questions about Beaver and how it works, feel free to get in touch here on the BlenderMarket using the "Ask Questions" button on the product page. Hearing what works and what doesn't allows us to update the documentation, FAQs and tells us how to improve the user interface in future versions. Your feedback is very welcome.
   
2. Feature Suggestions: If you have a new feature for Beaver in mind, feel free to give a brief description and a use-case. Please remember that Beaver is a general purpose add-on and features that are only of interest to a small percentage of users are not within the scope of the project.
   
3. Bug Reports: If you come across a bug or an error while using Beaver, we would appreciate it if you could also get in touch, so it can be fixed in a future version. To ensure a timely update, please include the following information:
   1. Your Blender version
   2. Your Beaver add-on version (as seen in the file name, or under Preferences > Add-ons > Beaver
   3. A clear description of the issue
   4. Steps to reproduce the issue
   5. Any error messages you received (screenshots, if possible, would be very helpful)
   6. Optionally, a .blend file

If you're happy with Beaver, feel free to recommend it to your grandmother and leave a five star rating. Happy blending, much cake in your life and all the best to you!