Re:Form 0.8.7 Alpha changes how a sculpt gets its detail. Until now you bought triangles for the whole model at once, by subdividing or remeshing. With the new Live switch on, the mesh grows under the brush and thins out where you smooth. The same release rebuilds undo so it works on the largest meshes, makes pen strokes follow the hand more closely, and moves part of Remesh onto the graphics card.
What version is Re:Form on now?
Re:Form is on v0.8.7 Alpha as of October 2, 2026. The release adds Live Topology, which adds triangles under the brush as you sculpt, plus undo that works at every mesh size, pen strokes that use every tablet sample, a faster Remesh with two steps on the graphics card, and a Smooth brush that keeps remeshed quads square.
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What is Live Topology in Re:Form?
Live Topology is a switch in Re:Form's Topology section that changes the mesh while you sculpt: building brushes such as Draw and Inflate add triangles under the stroke, and Smooth and Relax remove them. It works on a closed mesh of up to 2 million triangles, on every plan, and in v0.8.7 Alpha it is a first release.
The point is to stop paying for detail you are not using. Subdividing a whole figure to get enough triangles for an eyelid also quadruples the triangles on the back of the head, the shoulders and the base. With Live on, the eyelid gets fine triangles because that is where the brush went, and the rest of the model stays as coarse as you left it. You also don't stop mid-thought to press Subdivide or run a Remesh when a pulled-out shape runs short of geometry.
If you have sculpted in Blender or ZBrush, the idea will be familiar. Blender's Dyntopo adds and removes topology under the brush, and ZBrush's Sculptris Pro adds and reduces polygons where the stroke needs them, with density following the brush size (both per their official documentation as of October 2026). Both have had years of refinement and are more mature than a first release. Re:Form is our tool, so read the comparison with that in mind; there is a fuller look at those two programs in ZBrush vs Blender for sculpting.
How to use Live Topology
Everything is in the Topology section of the panel.
- Press Live: Off to switch it on. The active layer has to be a closed mesh of up to 2 million triangles with a single subdivision level. If the layer has levels above or below the current one, use Delete higher levels or Delete lower levels first. Anything that doesn't qualify is refused with a message saying what to do.
- Set Detail. The slider sets the triangle size the brush works toward: left for smaller triangles and finer detail, right for larger ones. The triangle and vertex counts at the top of the viewport follow as you work.
- Sculpt as usual. Which brush you hold decides what happens to the mesh:
| Brushes | What they do to the triangles |
|---|---|
| Draw, Inflate and the other building brushes | Add triangles under the stroke |
| Smooth, Relax | Remove triangles |
| Clay, Draw Sharp, Crease, Fissure, Grab, the mask brushes | Sculpt without changing the triangles |
Mask, paint and Mesh Sets stay with the surface as it changes. Saving, autosave, export, Share and rendering all work while Live is on.
Most other tools, including Remesh, Subdivide, the gizmo, layers, Clip and Extract, switch Live off first and then run as usual. You can also press Live: On to switch it off yourself; the shape does not change when you do.
Two things to know before the first press. Switching Live on turns a remeshed model's quads into triangles. And switching it on or off starts a new undo history, with a message the first time it happens. Inside a Live session, undo and redo work on every stroke, the added and removed triangles included.
The full reference is in the subdivision and detail guide.
When should you use Live Topology instead of Subdivide or Remesh?
Use Live Topology in Re:Form when detail belongs in one area of a model with up to 2 million triangles, such as a face on a rough body. Use Subdivide when the whole surface needs more density or you want to keep subdivision levels, and Remesh when stretched triangles need rebuilding as even quads.
The three tools answer different problems, and 0.8.7 does not retire either of the older ones.
| Subdivide | Remesh | Live Topology | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it changes | Splits every quad into four, across the whole model | Rebuilds the whole surface as evenly sized quads | Adds and removes triangles under the brush |
| When it runs | When you press it | When you press it | Continuously, while you sculpt |
| Mesh you end up with | Quads, with levels you can step between | Quads, one level | Triangles, one level |
| Size limit | Your plan's triangle budget | Meshes up to 25 million triangles | Up to 2 million triangles |
| Good for | Even detail everywhere; keeping coarse levels to step back to | Fixing stretched geometry after big shape changes | Early and mid-stage sculpting where detail is local |
A reasonable way to combine them: rough out forms with Live on while the shape is still changing, switch it off, Remesh to get an even quad surface, then Subdivide for the final detail pass. Subdivision levels and Live don't mix, since Live needs a single level, so decide which one a layer is using. For background on what Remesh does and does not do, see retopology vs remeshing, and for a sense of how many triangles a piece really needs, see how many polygons you need.
Undo at any mesh size
Undo was rebuilt in this release. A stroke used to store a copy of the whole mesh. It now remembers only the points it changed, and that has three effects:
- Undo works on the biggest meshes. Before 0.8.7 there was no undo for strokes above 30 million points. Now there is.
- You get many more steps. A small stroke on a huge mesh is a small record, so far more of them fit.
- Undo no longer takes graphics memory. The history is held in ordinary memory, up to 1 GB, with the oldest steps dropped first.
Mask and paint strokes are stored the same way. The automated check for this makes 50 strokes, undoes all 50 and redoes all 50, and requires the mesh to match byte for byte each time.
Pen strokes follow your hand
A tablet reports the pen's position more often than the screen redraws. Re:Form used to build a stroke from one position per frame, so a fast curved stroke could cut its corners. In 0.8.7 every pen sample between two frames is part of the stroke, each with its own pressure. A quick flick follows the curve you drew, and pressure changes smoothly along it instead of in steps. In the release's pen test, dabs sat 6.61 px off the drawn curve before the change and 0 after.
The mouse behaves as before. If you are deciding whether a pen is worth it at all, do you need a drawing tablet for 3D sculpting covers that.
A faster Remesh and a cleaner Smooth
- Two Remesh steps run on the graphics card. Building the voxel grid (with Sharpness at 0 and Fill holes off) and snapping the new surface onto your sculpt now happen on the GPU, and the step in between was sped up. At Resolution 256, a Remesh that took about seven seconds takes about four. The mesh you get is the same as before. If the graphics card can't take a step, the processor does it as it always did.
- Smooth keeps a remeshed surface clean. Smoothing a remeshed model used to grow small pinch divots wherever three or five quads meet, and it skewed the quads into a zigzag you could see in Wire. Smooth now sinks every point under the brush by the same amount, however crowded its neighbors are, and averages along the quads' own edges, so the grid stays square. The strength is the same. Relax keeps the grid square too.
The Remesh guide has the controls in full.
Smaller changes
- The Mask section is always in the panel. Invert, Clear and the other mask tools have their own section, whichever brush you hold.
- A new project opens tidier. The Brush section is open and the others are folded; click a title to open one.
- Sliders light up only while you drag them. A brush slider used to keep its highlight after you let go, and lit up again whenever Shift was held. It now lets go when the drag ends.
Is Re:Form 0.8.7 stable enough for real work?
Re:Form 0.8.7 is alpha software, and Live Topology is in its first release, so treat Live as something to try rather than something to rely on. The undo, Live Topology and pen changes each shipped with automated tests, including 100 Live strokes undone and redone identically. Save any project that matters as a .clay file as well.
Every tool in this release, Live Topology included, is on the Free plan, which covers personal, non-commercial work up to about 12.5 million triangles. Pro is $9.99 a month or $99 a year and raises the budget to 80 million triangles, adds STL, GLB and FBX import and export, and includes a commercial license.
What is still rough
- Live Topology feels heavier than ordinary sculpting on a dense mesh. That is the trade for changing the mesh on every stroke, and this is the first version of it.
- Live has hard limits. A closed mesh, one subdivision level, up to 2 million triangles. Above that, Subdivide and Remesh are still the way to add detail.
- Switching Live on or off starts a new undo history. Steps from before the switch can't be undone after it.
- Undo history has a ceiling. It holds up to 1 GB, and the oldest steps go first.
- Undo after a very big Remesh still has a limit. Undo brings back the mesh from before a Remesh when it had up to 3 million vertices; save first above that.
- The faster Remesh grid step needs the defaults. It runs on the graphics card with Sharpness at 0 and Fill holes off.
The previous release notes are in what's new in Re:Form 0.8.6 Alpha.
FAQ
Why won't Live Topology switch on for my model?
Live Topology in Re:Form 0.8.7 needs a closed mesh of up to 2 million triangles on a single subdivision level. If the layer has levels above or below the current one, use Delete higher levels or Delete lower levels first. Anything else is refused with a message that says what to do before switching it on.
Is Live Topology on the Free plan?
Yes. Live Topology is on the Free plan, like every other brush and tool in Re:Form, and you don't need Pro to use it. Pro raises the overall triangle budget from about 12.5 million to 80 million, adds STL, GLB and FBX import and export, and includes a commercial license for selling your work.
Do I lose my undo history when I switch Live Topology on?
Yes. Switching Live Topology on or off in Re:Form 0.8.7 starts a new undo history, and a message says so the first time. Strokes made while Live is on can be undone and redone, triangles included. On a remeshed model, switching it on also turns the quads into triangles, so save first if you want the quad mesh back.