Quad Maker Adds Retopology Feature For Tube-Like Forms
Create a path, tweak it as needed, then turn it into a clean quad sleeve.
Mark Kingsnorth's Quad Maker is a Maya-inspired Blender add-on that helps 3D artists quickly create clean, quad-based topology. Since launching in 2024, it has received regular updates with new features. The latest introduces Place Ring, which lets you retopologize tube-like forms, such as arms, legs, fingers, and necks, more easily.
It's a new drawing mode for the Draw Quads tool. Instead of painting a strip of quads by dragging across the surface, you place a few points to define the path you want. The tool then fits a curve through those points and creates a sleeve of quads along it. Whether you're placing points or editing the path, you can adjust the spacing between quads along the sleeve.
This is particularly useful for curved or winding shapes, as a few well-placed points define the path more accurately than dragging freely.
To switch to Place Ring, activate the Draw Quads tool and press the Spacebar to cycle between Strip and Place Ring modes. The active mode is shown in the status bar at the bottom of the viewport. You can also select Place Ring directly in the Tool Settings panel instead of pressing the Spacebar.
See the documentation for more details on Place Ring and watch the video above for a walkthrough of the workflow. It covers switching to Place Ring mode, placing and editing the path, adjusting ring spacing and loop density, and creating the final geometry.
Quad Maker is available for Blender 4.2 and above. Its full list of operations includes:
- Add Vertices: Quickly add point vertices;
- Fill Quads: Fill the point vertices and surrounding geometry with quads;
- Extend Borders: Extrude border edges and vertices either in single, loop, or edge rings;
- Quick Cut: Quickly use the simple loop cut and slide operation with single clicks;
- Draw Quad Strip: Quickly draw out strips of quads on a target surface;
- Smooth Vertices: Smooth out vertices in edit mode;
- Delete Mode: Quickly delete vertices, edges, and faces and dissolve interior edges in a single click/drag operation.
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