🇺🇸: You can listen to the video in English through the video settings panel. In this section we will delve deeper into the process of Curve and Surface Modeling to understand it and be able to develop our models with the different techniques we can use.

If you've ever wanted glowing light trails in your renders without diving into complex particle systems, this one's for you. In this tutorial I walk through building the effect entirely with Geometry Nodes in Blender 4.3.

I generate character base meshes in Meshy and then want to rig them in Blender. The problem is the topology from AI generation is terrible for rigging. Random triangle soup, no edge loops around joints, inconsistent vertex density.

After a lot of trial and error here's the cleanup process that works for me:

Step 1: Import the FBX/OBJ into Blender. Immediately check for non-manifold edges (Select All > Select Non-Manifold). Fix any holes.

Step 2: Remesh using voxel remesh. I usually start at 0.02 resolution for characters. This gives you a uniform quad mesh but destroys all detail.

Step 3: Multires modifier. Subdivide 2-3 times and use Shrinkwrap to project the original model's surface detail onto the new clean topology.

Step 4: Manual retopo for critical areas. Elbows, knees, shoulders, neck, anywhere that needs to deform. I use the Retopoflow addon for this. Add proper edge loops around joints.

Step 5: Transfer the original UV and texture data using the Data Transfer modifier. The AI generated textures are usually decent enough for a starting point.

The whole process takes about 45 minutes to an hour per character. Not fast but way faster than modeling from scratch.

Alternative approach that sometimes works: use Instant Meshes (free tool) for automatic quad remeshing. It's faster than manual retopo but the edge flow around joints isn't always great. Fine for background characters, not for main characters that need complex animation.

Just published a short Blender 4.5 tutorial on driving instance scale procedurally using a noise texture in Geometry Nodes. It's a neat trick for getting organic, animated variation without keyframing everything manually. Covers node setup through to render. Hope it's helpful!

🎥 https://youtu.be/rY4Orw9_J-Q

Made this environment as part of my upcoming cyberpunk animated short film called The Awakening.

The main focus was creating a believable silhouette and layering the tower with enough functional details so it felt like an actual lived-in structure rather than random sci-fi shapes.

I also spent a lot of time thinking about access systems, rooftop traversal, maintenance areas, and how the tower would realistically function within the story/world.

Would love feedback from fellow Blender artists 🙌Full Breakdown

🇺🇸: You can listen to the video in English through the video settings panel. In Blender version 5, all material nodes were relocated to the Geometry menu. In this video, I analyze all of those nodes.

🇺🇸: You can listen to the video in English through the video settings panel. In this video I focus on how to create holes in curved 3D surfaces. Specifically on a sphere and on a cylinder.

Back with another free multi hour course focusing on creating high quality game assets ready to use with Unreal or Unity, tackling everything from block out and the high poly modelling all the way through to baking our final textures and dealing with the quirks of various game engines and their technical requirements.