FST ForgePolish

A specialized high-performance hard-surface smoothing and polishing toolset for Blender.

Ideal for cleaning up retopologized meshes, removing surface irregularities, and ensuring flawless surface fidelity before final beveling and subdivision stages.

Where is it located in Blender?

Once installed, the FST ForgePolish panel can be accessed in the 3D Viewport. Open the Sidebar (press N) and navigate to the Edit tab.

Note: The FaceSets utility tools will only become active when you are in Edit Mode.

Workflow & Tools

FST ForgePolish relies on identifying "inner" regions and "boundaries". You can easily define these regions using the built-in FaceSets tools.

1. FaceSets Workflow (Preparation)

To get the best polishing results on complex hard-surface models, you can isolate flat planes and curved transitions using FaceSets.

• Edges to FaceSets: In Edit Mode, select the sharp edges that define your main surface transitions. Click this button to automatically create distinct FaceSets via a flood-fill algorithm based on your edge selection.
• FaceSets to Select: Quickly re-select the boundary edges that separate your neighboring FaceSets.

2. Polishing Modes (The Core)

When you click Polish, the tool modifies the mesh topology using one of two highly optimized algorithms (calculated via NumPy for maximum performance):

• Standard HC (Volume Preserve): Smooths the surface while utilizing HC correction to reduce volume loss. It maintains the original proportions of your mesh while relaxing the uneven topology.
• Tension First (Surface Shrink): Skips volume compensation and prioritizes tension reduction. This is an aggressive polish that shrinks the surface slightly but results in incredibly clean, sharp, and tight topology.

Parameters

• Iterations: Controls how many times the smoothing operation is repeated. Higher values result in a smoother mesh but may take slightly longer on very dense topology.
• Corners: A crucial feature for hard-surface modeling. It locks boundary corners that are sharper than the specified angle, preventing your mechanical corners from melting away during the smoothing process. Set to 0 to disable.
• Selected: If enabled, the tool will only polish the currently selected vertices/faces and completely lock the rest of the mesh in place.
• Advanced Options: Expand the advanced panel to get low-level control over the polish tuning:
  • Inner (Smooth / Preserve): Adjust the single-step smoothing strength and volume preservation inside the continuous face sets.
  • Boundary (Smooth / Preserve): Adjust the smoothing and preservation specifically on the borders separating the face sets.

Multilingual Support

FST ForgePolish automatically adapts to your Blender interface language. Built-in languages include:

• English
• Chinese (Simplified / Traditional)
• Japanese
• Spanish
• French
• German
• Russian

License

GNU General Public License v3.0