Quad Draw
Maya's retopology tool
Also known as: Maya Quad Draw · Maya retopology · Maya Modeling Toolkit retopo · Maya make live retopology · Quad Draw tool
Definition
Quad Draw is Maya's retopology tool, part of the Modeling Toolkit. You make a high-poly mesh live, so it acts as a surface to draw on, and then place vertices on it and create quads by clicking, with the new mesh snapping to the live surface. It gives full control over the edge flow of a clean, low-poly mesh built over a sculpt or scan, and has tools to relax, extrude and weld the new topology.
In production
Plan the edge flow before you draw: follow the muscles and forms, put loops around the eyes, mouth and joints, and keep quads even in size where the model will deform. Use Relax to even out the result and check it with a subdivision preview. For fast results on simpler assets, ZRemesher or Quad Remesher can create a first version that you clean by hand.
