The Right Way to fix Text Topology in Blender

Thanks for the explanation. This is a great, but a really busy workaround. I think the best solution is we organize ourselves and ask Blender Foundation for an All Quads Text solution.

when I skimmed through this tutorial my immediate thought was that there was no way I was gonna bother with all this work just for a text mesh... but it ended up being weirdly relaxing, and having a proper, workable mesh really is worth it. thanks for the video!

You guys have a lot of great ideas in the comments on how to improve this technique even more. Basically it comes down to the following scenarios: If you want cleaner text than blenders default mesh and fast results you can either use the remesh modifier (fastest method) or use limited dissolve on the entire mesh to remove unnecessary topology and create ngons. Use edge beveling and not subsurfing in this case to get smooth edges. Both methods give you a somewhat workable topology. But be aware that you might have to fight topology artifacts. If you want clean topology but don`t want to remodel the entire text from scratch use the method shown in the video. This gives you a headstart compared to manual retopology and clean quads without artifacts. Optimal for texturing, deformation, physics, simulations, animation and if you use a transparent shader. Having a look at automatic retopology tools might be worth a try but in most cases this will not give you a time benefit since you have to do a lot of cleanup work afterwards. All in all I think this shows that there is a great opportunity for blender developers and addon creators to come up with an algorithm to create good text topology right out of the box. I imagine this must be possible. Thanks again for your feedback - really appreciated. Keep it up. 💯

Thank you for this tutorial! Something I find really helpful for creating clean faces for something like this is enabling the LoopTools add-on in preferences, it gives you options to auto-space and relax your vertices.

you're getting there, and it is tons better than what I have seen with retopo beginners. what you need to do is also create support mesh shape holders for the vertical (which gets harder as your curves in the serifs make it a journey to do so, but overall it was a nice tutorial. Going into more in depth of why fonts create strange and overly detailed points would help (you gleaned a bit in 2-3 seconds here and there at 3-4x video speed).

I wish I knew this a few months ago, but better late than never. Very helpful. Thank you!

This process is more involved and takes extra time but it works and that's the most important part. Using Remesh on my text was not working the way it was for everyone else in their tutorial videos so this video ended up saving ,me

This is just what I needed. Thank you.

Thanks for this video. It's just what I needed to get the toon shader to work correctly. More work for sure, but it looks way better.

this video is pure gold ...thanks

Note that pressing F to create a new face requires enabling the "F2" addon. It's bundled with Blender and is very handy to enable though. Also for making edges sharper with subdivision, there's no need to add in extra geometry. One can just select the edge, press CTRL+E, and move mouse to change its sharpness.

This method might be a bit time consuming but it certainly does give a very clean result. Up to now I've been using the decimate modifier and switching it from collapse to planar. I then tab back into edit mode and do a limited dissolve + merge by distance. It gives a pretty good result most of the time if all you want to do is create a single render and don't want to animate or apply any physics. In future I'll definitely use this method when I need quality topology. Thanks for creating such a clear, concise and straightforward tutorial.

Thanks for showing this very helpful tutorial and happy blending with blender.

Good call with the limited dissolve. You can also bisect them and mirror so you only need to retopo one side.

This is great! Thank you! 🔥 🔥

thanks for making this! :)

For support loops I prefer to use the Bevel operator: select all the edges at the borders, Ctrl+B and then set the profile/shape of the bevel to 1.

This really helped, thanks.

Very indepth, not certain I would go through all that work on a consistent basis.

Grandiozo! Sit you just saved my life!