Articles | A collection of Articles, tutorials and thought processes | Olsen Portfolio

• Snapping Vertices

• Traditionally, when snapping vertices together (enable the snap tool in Vertex mode with Closest set for the Snap with feature), simply select the source vertex, press G then click-drag onto the target vertex, then release mouse button to finalize the snapping operation!


• However, while not enabling the snap before hand, you can snap vertices together by selecting the source vertex, then while hovering the mouse cursor over the target vertex, press G and enable the snap only temporarily while pressing Ctrl and left-click! The source vertex will automatically snap to the target vertex! No click-dragging necessary!

• Face Cleanup

Fast way to remove edges on coplanar faces is to select them, press X and choose Dissolve Faces (manual re-triangulation will be required afterwards as there will be no triangles, hence the clean up).

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• Duplicating & Instancing Meshes

Shift + D duplicates whatever object is selected.
Alt + D creates an instance instead!

To make an instanced object unique, you can simply go to the Object Menu and choose Relations > Make Single User > Object & Data.

• Extra Modelling Features

Make use of tools like shear, shrink/fatten and other useful buttons left side 3d viewport buttons while in Edit Mode (press T to hide or unhide them)!

• Spin Tool
  This takes a selection and spins / duplicates it in a circle centered on the 3d cursor's location! In some cases it's easier to use the spin tool instead of setting up an array modifier along with an empty object to accomplish radial arrays. Enabling the 'Use Duplicates' option only duplicates the selected element without any faces connecting them! See the online documentation for more details. There appears to be no difference between this and the alternative Spin Duplicates function!
  
  
• Poly Build
  Starting with flat polygon (like a plane for example), selecting an edge (blue edge highlights) and click-dragging it acts as an quad extrude. Ctrl clicking from an edge or vertex extrudes a triangle while Shift clicking over a polygon or vertex (red edge highlight) deletes it! This tool is very useful for vanilla, out of the box Blender retopology!
  
  
• Shrink/Fatten
  Allows a selection to be either grown (fattened) or shrunk down by moving vertices along their normals This comes in handy when say needing to adjust a cup handle's thickness for instance.
  
  Push/Pull
  The difference here is that the selection will be moved towards / away from the transform pivot point! Here is a video showcasing both options.
  
  
• Shear
  This shears a selection on a mesh in the desired screen axis via little horizontal and vertical bar handles. See this example to better understand how this works.
  
  
• Add Cube
  Enables the user to click drag and release a cube in the viewport (a la 3DS Max). Better yet, a cube can be added to an existing surface!

• Inset Options

In Blender, insets have multiple functionally that goes beyond the mere inset itself! With some faces selected:

• Press I to inset. This insets the entire selection as a single group (default behavior).
• Press I again insets all selected faces individually.
• Press O to inset outside the selected faces!
• Once an inset is live, hold down Ctrl and move the mouse left or right to create inner or outer extrudes respectively!

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Use inset with the Boundary option unchecked to create doorways. Beforehand, ensure that there is no capped faces beneath! After selecting face and pressing I to initiate the inset tool, you can press B while the tool is active to set the boundary option!

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• Mesh Origin Manual Placement

You can manually transform a mesh's origin point by simply pressing Ctrl + . (not the one on the numpad). You'll notice the axis gizmo overlaying the origin. From here, you can move, rotate or even scale it. Additionally, it will snap to any snap settings you have enabled, giving you the quick flexibility of snapping the origin to whatever you need! Pressing Ctrl + . again exits manual origin placement mode.

• Loop Cut Tool

Simply hover your mouse cursor over any edge and then press Ctrl + R to invoke the loop cut tool. At this point, you get a new central edge loop, but with this tool still live, so you have some options here... if you scroll with your mouse wheel, you can increase (or decrease) the mount of evenly spaced additional edge loops.

Left-clicking finalizes the amount of edge loops and now allows you to move your mouse or tablet pen around to slide and place the edge loop(s) where you want it (right-clicking auto centers these edge loops and exits the loop cut functionality while left clicking stamps the edge loops in place and exits the tool). However, one cool additional thing during sliding / placing phase is that if you hit E, the loops will confine to the lower edge loop shape while pressing F will confine to upper one!

• Extrude Features

Click Extruding
You can extrude a selection by holding Ctrl and right clicking! The selection will extrude to the mouse cursor! This can come in handy when say manually modeling a tree. Selecting faces on a trunk and Ctrl right clicking off the trunk will produce the starting point of a branch. From there, simply scale the branch tip down a bit, then repeat the process to quickly finish the branch off!

Extrude Faces Along Normals
It's sometimes useful to extrude faces along their normals! The process is simple. Make a selection of faces and press Alt + E to invoke the extrude menu. From here, simply choose Extrude Along Face Normals and drag to create the extrusion process!

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Extrude Individual Faces
This extrudes all faces individually along their face normals.

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• Shrink / Fatten

Sometimes you might want to slide a vertex or face along its normals. This is as easy as making the selection and pressing Alt + S and dragging the mouse! After left-clicking to finalize the operation, a Shrink/Flatten redo panel appears in the lower left hand corner of the viewport with options like adjusting the offset or enabling offset even (which provides a more uniform thickness as well as proportional editing.

• Extra Primitives (Like Capsule)

Did you know that there are a few extra primitives (like the capsule) in Blender? To begin, ensure that the Add Mesh: Extra Objects add-on is installed. Then simply press Shift + A and from the resulting Add menu, choose Mesh > Round Cube. A rounded cube appears in the scene. Next, locate the Add Round Cube redo panel on the lower left hand corner of the 3d viewport, open it and from the Operator Presets drop down, you'll notice there are a few new primitives to choose from!

• Extrude Even Thickness

When wanting to apply a thickness to some non-manifold faces, you have two options:

• Apply a Solidify modifier and enable Even Thickness - or -


• With faces selected, press Alt + E to bring up the Extrude popup. Choose Extrude Faces Along Normals. At this point (with the tool still active), the extrude will look uneven. Holding down Alt will preview the even thickness while pressing S will toggle it on or off!

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• Vertex Grouping

Vertex groups is a great feature that allows us to "save selections" if you will. This becomes particularly powerful when dealing with certain modifiers for instance (only affecting certain vertices)! Perhaps you need to create a group to be able to apply vertex paint to, or you need to revisit a selection to tweak its thickness, or position, or use them in a modifier, etc... The list of reasons are probably plentiful!

Vertex Group Setup
Start by selecting the vertices / faces you want to group together. Do one of the following:

• Press Ctrl + G and choose Assign To New Group from the Vertex Groups popup (this is the quicker / easier way) - or -
• Within the Object Data Properties panel, create a new vertex group by clicking on the + button within the right hand side of the vertex group panel. This will create a default group name called Group. Next, click on the Assign button. Now, any vertices / faces are now assigned to this group.

Either way, it's a good practice to give the vertex group a more meaningful name!

Modifying Vertex Groups

Once a vertex group is set, it's possible to add / remove vertices from said group!

• Adding to group: You can add by making a selection, and with the current group selected, simply click 'Assign' again. This will add the current selection to the complete group selection.


• Removing from group: If there is any vertices / faces you don't want to include, deselect everything, then select only those you don't want to be included in the currently selected group and press 'Remove'.


• Selecting and Deselecting: 'Select' will select any selections assigned to the currently highlighted group while 'Deselect' will deselect the group's assigned selection.

You can create many vertex groups, and even have some groups share some selections. Vertex groups is a powerful way to access the selections you need to make any necessary changes quick and painless!

• Knife Project

The Knife Project tool allows a mesh or curve object to be projected and cut into a background mesh (if the background mesh is not flat/co-planar), you might want to have enough face subdivisions to give enough resolution to work with). The process is simple.

1. First select the mesh that you want to receive the cut and go into Edit Mode. Next, from within the outliner, Ctrl + click on a non-manifold mesh that will act as the "cookie cutter". In this case, a mesh with open edges / borders.
2. From within the top viewport menu, choose Mesh > Knife Project. Note: The viewport camera will determine the angle of the projection (think project from view), so it's best to go into an orthographic view for this.
3. The resulting projected faces are automatically selected. From here, the creative possibilities are plentiful! If you wish to have the kinfe project go through the entire mesh, simply enable Cut Through in the Knife Project redo panel in the lower left hand side during the project operation! View the document for more details.

• Quick Way To Make A Cage

1. Create a plane, select all faces, right-click and choose Subdivide and press Shift + R (redo last action) a few times to give it enough subdivisions (not too many though).
2. With all faces still selected, right-click and choose Poke. This will result in a central vertex for each face.
3. Now right-click again and choose Tris to Quads (or press Alt + J). This will result in a grid pattern that is rotated 45°!
4. Go into Object Mode and add a Wireframe modifier to it. Play with the Thickness option to achieve the desired look. You can even enable the Boundary option to auto cap the open edges!
5. Feel free to further dress the cage up by applying a Bevel modifier and playing with the Amount and Segment count to give it a more stylized look!

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• Sliding vertex beyond edge

From time to time you may find the need to slide a vertex beyond the edge it is connected to. By default, after selecting a vertex and pressing G G, the vertex will slide along either of its connecting edges. But if you wanted to continue sliding the vertex beyond an edge, simply press C to disable clamping and continue dragging the vertex past the corner point!

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Alternatively, after pressing G G, you can hold down Alt and drag the vertex beyond its constrained edges. It's worth noting though that this will only work if you do not have Emulate 3 Button Mouse enabled in your preferences!

• Offset Edge Loops

You can easily create offset edge loops (which can come in hand when modelling high subdivision meshes) by selecting edge(s), pressing Ctrl + Shift + R and left-click dragging!

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• Edge Profile Spin (lathe)

This is similar to tip #73 (array using the Extrude Spin method) in that the position of the mesh's pivot point matters. In an orthographic view (in this example, front view), start by adding a mesh vertex (press Shift + A and choosing Mesh > Single Vert > Add Single Vert - You'll need Blender's native Add Mesh: Extra objects add-on installed. Otherwise, add a plane and collapse all vertices into a single vertex and start from there), and in vertex mode, select the point and press E to extrude it.

Continue to extrude vertices to form a profile shape you want (in this case, a wine glass). Once the profile is completed, simply select all its vertices (double tap A) and from the appropriate orthographic view (in this case top view) press Alt + E then S! This will result in a 'lathed' mesh! Adjust the Steps value within the Spin operator panel in the bottom left hand corner of the viewport to give more segments!

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• Edge Creasing

When creating high subsurface division meshes, you can use edge creasing in place of additional edge loops to achieve tighter edged visuals. To do this, simply start by adding a subdivision modifier to your mesh, then with the desired edges selected, press Shift + E and left-click drag to adjust the edge creasing! Simple as that!

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• Bisect Tool

Blender has tools that allows us to cut straight through a mesh. The knife tool can accomplish this, but is very limited, in that it only performs a cutting operation. The bisect tool by contrast, while only allowing straight cuts, allows to reposition the cut, as well as remove the top or bottom portion and fill in the hole of the remaining portion! Lets add the monkey mesh as an example and see how this works.

1. Select all mesh faces (pressing A twice) and from within the viewport menu along the top, choose Mesh > Bisect. Left click-dragging through the mesh establishes the cut line.
2. With the line established, the bisect gizmo allows the line to be moved and/or rotated!
3. Within the bisect panel in the lower bottom left of the viewport, you can choose between Clear Inner, Clear Outer and whether there is a Fill applied or not!

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• Lattice Deform

Adding a lattice to deform your mesh is pretty easy and straight forward! Let's use the Blender monkey head as a starting scene!

1. Press Shift + A and choose Lattice from the Add popup.
2. Scale/Move the lattice to fit the mesh in object mode! It is very important you do NOT resize the lattice in edit mode, as this will ultimately give incorrect results!
3. Select the monkey mesh, then Shift + Click the lattice mesh. Press Ctrl + P and choose Lattice Deform from the Set Parent To popup (a lattice modifier is automatically added to the monkey mesh!)
4. Optional: Select the lattice mesh and from the Lattice tab (), adjust the U,V and W resolution to add more vertices to the lattice for more deformation control!
5. In edit mode, select lattice vertices and manipulate them to deform the monkey mesh!

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• Subdivide Edge Ring

Sometimes you might make a cylinder or say an arch that is too low in poly count. It is possible to not only increase the segments, but have those new segments follow the curve of the surrounding existing segments as well! Using the example scene of a pillar and arch, let's see how subdivision edge rings can solve this! Start by ring selecting the edges needed to increase in resolution.

In many cases, edge loop selections will work as well. Just be sure that matching opposite edge loops are also selected, otherwise you'll get undesirable results! From the viewport top menu, choose Edge > Subdivide Edge-Ring. In the operations panel in the lower left side of the screen, the Number of Cuts setting defaults to 10. Simply alter this to get different results (a setting of 1 doubles the segments). You might need to apply transforms to your mesh before hand for this tool to function properly!

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• Interactive Primitives

Primitives aren't limited to those found in the Add popup (Shift + A). Along the left side icons in the viewport (if they're not visible, press T to bring them up), locate the Add Cube icon. This is the primitive interactive cube (by default - long pressing on the Add Cube icon reveals a small drop down of additional primitives, each with their own click and drag functionality to set up their dimensions!). Clicking on this converts the mouse cursor within the viewport to a circular grid with a fall off. In this mode, you can simply click and drag to start the width/length of the cube.

Once you left click, move the mouse cursor up or down and click to determine its height.

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• Fixing Beveled Corner

There might be some situations where beveling multiple edges that include an inner corner causes undesirable results. Whether you are using the bevel modifier or simply using the bevel shortcut, setting the Miter Outer to Arc will set the beveled inner corner to have an arching radius that is more often than not the desired outcome!

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• Cycling Proportional Mode

You can cycle through the various proportional editing modes while the tool is active! Start by making a selection on your mesh and press O to enable the proportional tool. Next, press G and while the selection is moved (don't click to finalize the move), simply hold down Shift and continuously press O to cycle through the various proportional tool's modes (not all modes are represented here).

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• Link/Data Transfer

Select multiple objects and press Ctrl + L to bring up the Link/Data Transfer popup. From here, you can link things like materials (see tip Copying Materials From One Mesh To Another) or Object Data where one mesh visually becomes the same as another mesh!
The benefit here is that since all meshes involved will be linked to a singular under the hood data block, this in effect acts like an instance! So modifying one linked mesh will affect all other linked meshes as well! Additionally, you can use this menu to copy modifiers from one mesh to another among other features! Pretty handy stuff! You can read more about data blocks here!

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• Loop Cut Smoothness

When loop cutting, it is possible to give the cuts some shape by adjusting the smoothness and falloff settings in the Loop Cut and Slide operator panel found in the lower left hand viewport panel while the tool is live!

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• Mesh bounding Box

It is easy to display a mesh bounding box by simply going into the Object Properties tab and from within the Viewport Display panel, enabling the Bounds option! There is also a Display Bounds Type drop down list where you can choose from different bound type options (Box, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone and Capsule!)

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• Quick Wireframe

While with the mesh selected you can add a Wireframe modifier to convert your mesh into a 3d wireframe, another (albeit destructive modelling) way is to go into Edit Mode, select all the mesh faces and from within the 3d viewport menu, choose Face > Wireframe. This will pretty much do the same thing. Use the property panel in the lower left hand side in the viewport to play with Thickness and Offset values among others to dial in the wireframe look you going for!

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• Bevel Clamp Overlap

When beveling multiple edge loops simultaneously, their heights are not restricted, leading to potential overlaps! But while the bevel tool is active, pressing C while dragging multi-bevels will clamp each as they collide with one another!

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Note: With clamping, vertices that 'collide' will not merge, even with Auto Merge enabled!
This is due to the fact that there is face(s) between these vertices.

• Show Complete Subdivision In Wireframe

When a subdivision modifier is applied to a mesh and is viewed in wireframe mode (press Z and choose Wireframe), the subdivision is "optimally" displayed. Basically, Blender is showcasing a simplified version of the wireframe. If you uncheck the optimal display option from the modifier panel however, the subdivision mesh will be displayed in all its dense wireframe glory!

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• Bevel Intersection Types

Normally, while performing a bevel operation (Ctrl + B) with some added segments (by scrolling the mouse wheel), corners use an Intersection Type called Grid Fill (which is to say, corners are rounded and nicely filled in a grid fashion). But what you may not realize is that while the bevel tool is active, you can toggle this intersection type by pressing N (which will set the intersection type to Cut Off!) Notice the corners become, well, cut off! This is all reflected in the Bevel operator panel on the lower left hand side of the viewport.

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• Display Origin On All Meshes

Normally you would have the mesh origin visible only on the currently selected mesh. But it's very easy to display them on all meshes in the scene! Simply go to the Show Overlays dropdown menu along the top of the 3d viewport and enable both Origin and Origin All (Origin needs to be enabled for Origin All to work!)

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• Edge Bevel Weight

Did you know it is possible to have multiple various bevel widths using a single bevel modifier? Start by applying a bevel modifier to your mesh. Increase the Amount value to the maximum the mesh can hold. Why? Because in the steps that follows, any bevels you create can only be as large as the amount setting (but can be smaller). By making this value big, you are giving yourself some extra bevel padding space (this will make sense soon enough).

Next, set the modifier's Limit Method dropdown menu to Weight. At this point, all the bevels on the mesh should disappear! This is because the modifier now requires some edge weights for beveling! Go into Edit Mode and select a set of edges, press Ctrl + E (to bring up the Edge menu) and choose Edge Bevel Weight and start left-click dragging to set that bevel! Rinse and repeat, selecting another set of edges and doing another edge bevel weight click-drag operation and so on. You can create a wide variety of bevels, all using the single bevel modifier on the mesh!

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• Bridge Faces To Create Tunnel In Mesh

The Bridge Face tool is quite versatile, allowing you to connect two separate faces on the same mesh. Plenty of features are availble from adding many cuts and twisting the connection, changing its interprolation, smoothness and profile shape among others!

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But there is another common use for the Bridge Face tool, and that is to create a tunnel in the mesh! Start by selecting two faces on a mesh (normally opposite of each other) and then right-click and choose Bridge Faces. You'll be left with a tunnel through the mesh, bridging where the two selected faces use to be!

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• Bridge Edge Loop For Semicircle

To create a semicircle as part of a boxy object, you could select some edges and bevel them with a clamp and enough segements (see tip Bevel Clamp Overlap), but here's a different way! Start with a rectangular box with the top face deleted for instance. In Edge mode, select a set of opposing edges, right-click and choose Bridge Edge Loop. In the redo panel located in the bottom left-hand side of the 3d viewport, set the Number of Cuts to have enough segments for rounder definition, and finally change the Interpolation value to Blend Surface! There you have it! An easy semicircle for a machine part or the foundation of an arc for architecture!

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• Instancing On Vertices

One neat way of using instancing is to have instances of a mesh placed on another mesh's vertices (it will all make sense)! In the example below, the goal is to add rivets along a fixed distance inside the surface of a panel. So alongside said panel, create a rivet (in this case, a simple UV Sphere).

1. Select the face(s) of the panel in question and duplicate it by pressing Shift + D, then right-click to cancel its transforms. Then press P and choose Selection to make it its own mesh. With this duplicated panel's face(s) selected, go inset to the desired amount by pressing I. Once the inset is established, press Ctrl + I to invert the face selection and press X and choose Delete Faces. We'll call the faces that remain as the insetted panel.
2. Next we need to ensure that the origin points of both the rivet (which is assumed to be in its center) and the insetted panel are in the same location. If origins are not visible, go into the Viewport Overlays drop down menu and ensure that the Origins radial check box is checked. With the rivet mesh selected, press Shift + S and choose Cursor to Selected. Next, with the insetted panel selected, go to Object > Set Origin > Origin to 3d Cursor.
3. Next, select the rivet, then hold Shift and click on the insetted panel, press Ctrl + P and choose Object (Keep Transform).
4. Now for the instancing part! Head over to the Object Properties side panel and from within the Instancing panel, click the Vertices button. Now an instance of each rivet is placed centered along each vertex of the insetted panel! The beauty here is that you can add or remove vertices along the insetted panel's edges and the rivets will add or subtract accordingly! To make each rivet their own mesh, select the insetted panel, press Ctrl + A and choose Make Instances Real!

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• Dissolve Using Face Split & Tear Boundaries

When it comes to dissolving vertices (Ctrl + X), there are a few options in the lower left hand side redo panel. Here's a quick over view of those options:

Face Split

Dissolving vertices can result in larger, uneven n-gons. The Face Split optiion limits the dissolve to using corners of faces that are connected to vertices.

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Tear Boundary

This option splits off face corners as opposed to merging faces!

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• Changing Default Cylinder Caps

By default, when you add a cylinder primitive, the end caps are triangulated. But within the Add Cylinder panel in the lower left hand corner, you can simply change the cap type by selecting from the Cap Fill Type dropdown menu (your choices are None, N-Gon or Triangle Fill).

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• Adding Edge Loop To Triangle Faces

While on the surface it might seem trivial to add an edge loop to a say a cone, the reality is that since it is comprised of triangles, using Ctrl + R won't work! Below are three different approaches to adding an edge loop to triangle surfaces (using a cone as an example)!

Method 1: Knife tool
Start by going into an orthorgraphic view (like front or side view via Numpad 1 or Numpad 3 respectively) and press K to initiate the knife tool. Next, press A to activate angle snapping. Now press C to set the knife tool to cut through the entire mesh. Now simply cut horizontally across the cone from one side to the other at the desired location and press Enter to complete the cut! You now have an "edge loop" across the cone!

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Method 2: Subdivide
A simpler method is to simply go into Edit Mode and Edge Select, then go into x-ray mode (by pressing Alt + Z), click and drag select all the vertical edges of the cone, then finally right-click and choose Subdivide! Now you have an edge loop!

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Method 3: Bevel & Slide
This final method makes use of the bevel tool (which will result in an unecessary additional edge loop, but this is easily removed afterwards). Start by select the bottom edges of the cone and press Ctrl + B to activate the bevel tool. Click drag then click again to get the bevel started.

While the tool is still active, open the Bevel operations panel in the bottom left hand side of the viewport and set the Segement value to 2 and the Shape value to 1. This leaves the original cone's bottom edges in place and merely adds an extra set of edge loops on either side of it! Simply dissolve the loop on the under side of the cone by selecting it and pressing Ctrl + X, and then select the loop on the vertical edges and slide it (pressing G twice) to the desired height along the cone and voila! Yet another edge loop!

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• Shade Smooth Selected Faces

Did you know that you can apply shaded smoothing to only some faces on the mesh? Simply go into Edit mode, select the faces you want, right-click and choose Shade Smooth! Now only those faces you selected will be smooth! This just goes to show that smoothing is not all or nothing globally across the entire mesh!

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• Extrude To Quickly Create Forms

While it seems like a no-brainer to use extrudes to extend something, this tip is more about making use of extrusions to create things like capsules or elongated chain links with minimal fuss!

Making A Quick Capsule
Lets start by looking at how to generate a capusle from a standard sphere relatively quickly. Press Ctrl + A to bring up the Add menu and choose Mesh > UV Sphere. Next, press Alt + Z to go into x-ray mode and select half of the sphere in face mode. At this point, most people would probably separate the selection, move it, re-attach it and then select both sets of open boundary edges and bridge them. This is simply too many steps! Instead, simpy press E to extrude and then press the desired axis constraint key (in this case, X) and move the selection over! That fast and simple!

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Making A Quick Chain link
Start by once again pressing Alt + A to bring up the Add menu but this time choose Model > Torus. Again in x-ray mode (Alt + Z), select half of the torus, then press E and follow it with the axis constraint key and drag to form the chain link! You can stop here and be done with it, but if you wanted to make a more rounded rectangular link, simply select the entire bottom set of faces, extrude and move downwards! Once again, a fast and easy method of creating forms by simply extruding portions of them!

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• Extrude Dissolve Orthogonal Edges

Did you know that while extruding faces that result in other faces being non-manifold and while the tool is live you can simply enable the Dissolve Orthogonal Edges feature to clean things up?

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• Weld Edges Into Faces

Sometimes you might run into a situation where there is loose edge(s) sitting along face(s) in the same mesh (or this can be deliberately done for speeding up some quick edge prototyping) and you want to merge (weld) those edges into the faces directly! This is very easy to do. With all your mesh faces selected, you can either:

• Go to Face > Weld Edges into Faces from the top viewport menu -or-
• Press Ctrl + F (to bring up the Face menu) and choose Weld Edges into Faces from there.

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• LoopTools Gstretch Using Annotations

LoopTools is an included add-on in Blender that offers a wide array of useful functionalities! If this isn't already enabled, see the first screenshot in the tip Rounding Edge Loop Corners to see how to enable it! There are a few ways on conforming vertices along an edge loop to a curve. This method makes use of LoopTool's Gstretch function!

Creating And Conforming To The Curve

1. Starting with a mesh containing enough length segments, select the vertices of an edge loop that you wish to curve. Next, press N to bring up the right-hand viewport tabs and select the Edit tab. From within the LoopTools panel, click on the arrow next to the Gstretch subpanel to open up its options. From within the Use guides dropdown, set this value to Annotation.
2. Next, click on the Annotate tool from the left-hand side viewport toolbar (press T from within the viewport if this is not visible) and proceed to draw an annotated curve directly above the selected row of vertices.
3. Finally, click on the Gstretch button itself within the LoopTools panel and the selected vertices will follow the curvature of the annotated line you just drew!

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Removing The Annotation Strokes
To Cancel this operation (the vertices must still be selected), you can simply open up the Gstretch properties panel in the lower left-hand side of the viewport (or from within the viewport LoopTools > Gstretch side panel) and simply click on the Delete annotation stroke!

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If you are happy with the results and want to clear the stroke, start by simply pressing Alt + A (to deselect all the vertices) and either:

• click the Delete annotation stroke button from within the Gstretch viewport side panel. -or-
• simply go into the View tab from the viewport side bar and from within the Annotations panel, click on the minus button (or alternatively, you can right-click on this button and assign it to the Favorites menu for faster access)!