What is TopoGun?
TopoGun is a stand-alone resurfacing, and maps baking application. The resurfacing functions in TopoGun will help you modify and/or recreate the edgeflow of your digital 3D models. The maps baking functions, will help you bake various types of texture maps from your high resolution 3D models and then allow you to apply them to your newly created optimized meshes. These texture maps contain information that will help you recover the appearance and features of the original high resolution mesh.
In today's 3D graphics, high quality 3D models, due to their nature, usually have millions of polygons. This is because most of today's 3D models are created from real world scanned models, or they are digital sculptures, created using brush based 3D sculpting applications.
In order to better serve their purposes, 3D models should have a much lower polycount and must provide for a deserved ease of handling. Even more than this, they need to have specific edgeflows in order to be more easily animated, or further detailed.
You can use TopoGun to bake multiple maps out of the original highres meshes. These maps can be used by texture artists when texturing the models. They can also be used by 3D engines in order to preserve the original mesh's features, (i.e., small details that couldn't be recovered after retopologizing due to the limited polycount an engine can render in realtime).
Features
Portability
TopoGun is a standalone application available for Windows, OS X, and Linux operating systems. TopoGun licenses are cross-platform and after buying one, TopoGun can be installed on any of these operating systems.
Friendly Interface
TopoGun supports several widespread viewport navigation models and there's a great chance you'll get used to it quickly.
The interface is simple, straightforward and very customizable, giving you the freedom to modify it to fit your needs.
You can add/delete interface elements and/or rearrange them easily. In TopoGun, the buttons are treated just like shortcut icons, so you can move them around, even place them on the viewport area. You can add a button for just about any menu item, to have it in hand for a much quicker later access.
You can also redefine keyboard shortcuts for any command and option in TopoGun.
Dedicated Topology Tools
Unlike any other 3D packages, TopoGun is a specialized standalone application, aimed for retopology in the first place. Each TopoGun tool is designed for topology creating and editing.
The newly created geometry wraps around the highres model in realtime. When you move the retopologized mesh components around, they will stick to the highres mesh's surface.
Friendly File Formats
TopoGun uses the .obj file format which is becoming more and more of a standard in today's 3D graphics. TopoGun's own file format is XML based and very easy to parse. Furthermore, TopoGun also supports the .ply file format (including per-vertex color information), used extensively in the 3D scanning industry.
Multithreading
TopoGun's baking and subdivision modules are fully multithreaded and up to 256 CPU cores are supported.
Native 32 and 64 Bit Executable
TopoGun is available in 32 and 64 bit executable code. The 64 bit version can access and use much more memory, thus increasing performance and capabilities.
Multimillion 3D Meshes
TopoGun can handle extremely highres 3D data. The polycount limit is set by the available RAM on your system. It uses special rendering techniques to achieve unparalleled highres mesh rendering framerates.