Optiloops Addon

The Optiloops Addon is able to remove loops on places where loops doesn’t contribute much to the curvature. That is pretty interesting because it means that we can lower the polycount with a few clicks. We can also reduce polycount with the Decimate modifier (unsubdivide) this affects more the curvature. Reducing polycount while keeping the curvature, that sounds very welcome.

Depending on what mesh you apply Optiloops, in some cases you have to tweak the mesh a little bit with some tools like knife to remove ngons. But if your mesh already contains only quads, you easily can apply Optiloops on the whole mesh. Alternatively you can first select a part of the mesh, tweak the operator (Angle) and run again on other selections. I made a video before about Bsurfaces and the Optiloops addon works perfectly with this.

The UI of the Optiloops Addon

To use the Optiloops addon, make a selection on the mesh in Edit mode. Then press the Delete- or x-key and in the menu choose: Optimize loops. Alternatively you can find it also by searching it with F3, but x is the eassiest way. (Thanks for the comment!).

Then the operator shows up as shown in screenshot above. Mostly likely you will use the property Max angle the most. The higher the value the more loops will be removed. And loops will be removed where it doesn’t contribute to the curvature. Useless loops, so to say. And if there are loops you want to keep, you can mark Edges as seams first.

Where to download the Optiloops addon?

The addon is part of the BlenderKit (paid, I believe), but is also available for free on Github – Optiloops. Check also this link which seems to be an update (performance). Installation is pretty simple. Download the .zip file on Github and in Blender you go to Edit > Preferences > Addons. There you navigate to the .zip file you just downloaded and press Install. Activate the addon, Save preferences and refresh.

For more information about and up-to-date info about the addon visit Blenderartists.org. Check also this link on Blenderartists which seems to be an update.