Re-topology setup: in-front attribute

Question

I'm learning how to re-topology and I learn from a tutorial that the best way is to set the new mesh as "in front" so it can be viewed "over" the original mesh.

The problem is that this "in front" attribute creates a "wireframe" view when a part of the new mesh is overlapping itself.

Can you explain me if it's possible to setup the new mesh so it's IN FRONT of the mesh I'm redoing, but not in front of the new mesh itself?

In front ON: I cannot see what is IN FRONT and what is BACK inside my mesh

In front OFF: I cannot see my mesh IN FRONT of the original mesh.

Answer 1

A few things:

• there is a retopology shading feature in development. The RCS proposal has the "in development" tag and I saw a few tasks on developer.blender.org about it (here's one I could find back).

• in the mean time, there are add-ons. Draw X-ray uses a shading method to put the geometry of the edited object "on top" of other objects using a distance threshold and Backface Hiding (made by yours truly) simply uses the face normals like backface culling does, except not in real-time but with the push of a button. Finally there's Retopoflow which does a lot of things including a similar shading method to Draw-XRay. They all have their pros and cons and use cases. If you need the hiding feature but don't need other retopo tools. In terms of pricing, Backface Hiding is completely free, Draw X-Ray is a "pay what you want" on Gumroad and Retopoflow is currently $86.

Answer 2

I found some tips for these problems (thanks to this yt tutorial: https://youtu.be/wLqBzU3p6_8?t=1001 )

• use H to hide portions of the meshes
• use ALT-B to set clipping borders

ALT-B info: Allows you to define a clipping border to limit the 3D View display to a portion of 3D space. It can assist in the process of working with complex models and scenes.

https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/2.79/editors/3dview/navigate/clip.html