Draw Xray

For Blender 3.6 and 4.0 up use latest DrawXray 3.8

Free version of Draw Xray add-on will help you to draw retopo mesh on top of your high-poly mesh, without problems of build-in blender xray (no proper back-face culling).

How to use:

• Install DrawXray like any other Blender add-on - see Blender docs
• In 3D View Top Bar > Viewport Overlays press 'Enable Xray' - if you go to mesh edit mode, you will se new overlay rendered on top of your mesh
• Depth Bias - will determine how much your lowpoly object will be rendered in front of other objects. Set it to 0 to get default blender behavior.
• You can change Face Color and Highlights Color;
• Xray Overlay can be enabled in following modes: Edit, Sculpt, Paint, Object (default - Edit; shift+Click to select multiple modes).

Video guide from Jayanam - showing the retopo Xray overlay

Paid version comes with snapping features:

• better approximation of high-poly mesh, compared to blender build in snapping,
• support for retopology with subdivision modifier - DrawXray will negate mesh shrinking effect caused by that modifier,
• linking pairs of hipoly and lowpoly meshes, etc

Details about snapping features were shown in video below:

Update 2.3 Blender 2.8 only (23.08.2019)

• fixed crashes on scripts reload, and other bugs.
• by default per object snapping is now set to 'Global' . Saves few clicks: when you enable global snapping, all objects will use now global target. You can still change it per object in: 'Object Viewport' panel to: Disabled or Local (different snap target for each object)

Update 2.7 Blender 2.8 and 2.9  (19.11.2020)

• addon draws more uniform edges now
• more snapping options (based on shrink wrap modifier)
• Simplified UI (there is no longer separate panel in object properties)

Update 2.8 for Blender 2.93 and 3.0 (01.12.2021)

• Added compatibility with Blender 3.0

Update 2.9 for Blender 2.93 and 3.x (12.09.2022)

• Added compatibility with Blender 3.3
• remade snapping - only selected vertices will snap (in past - whole mesh would be snapped to high-poly obj)

Update 3.0 for Blender 2.93 and 3.x (17.02.2023)

• Code refactor. Hopefully it will fix some random issues people are experiencing

Update 3.1for Blender 2.93 and 3.x (1.04.2023)

• added compatibility with blender 3.5

Update 3.3 for Blender 3.5 and up only! (1.04.2023)

1. moved whole open-gl drawing to new GPU module in blender 3.5

Update 3.4 for Blender 3.6 and up only! (8.08.2023)

• option to draw in Edit mode and/or Sculpt Mode and/or Object Mode and/or Paint Mode
• Xray will show now shapekeys on object correctly

Update ver 3.6 (for version with snapping (24.11.2023) :

• improved snapping behavior on concave areas
• nicer results when using subdivision modifier on your retopo mesh,
• ability to snap to any object (not just mesh types)
• new - snap to: selected object, collection of objects, all objects
• ability to affect neighbors of selected geometry, for nicer retopo mesh interpolation
• added new - projected snapping method

Update ver 3.8 (for version with snapping (2.3.2024):

• Fixed 'Projected snapping' method when using Orthographic view
• fixed not being able to snap in mesh edit mode, when Xray overlay Mode was set to Sculpt only display method,
• other fixes and tweaks