Sculpt surface node

Lets you interactively reshape a surface by brushing.

See also: Capture Layer Paint, Comb, Paint, UV Brush

Deform mode lets you push or pull the geometry along its normals.
Smooth mode smooths out the geometry.

Using Sculpt

Select the object you want to sculpt, or in component mode, select a subset of the points in an object.

When you select a subset of points, the Sculpt tool will only be able to modify the selected points. The unselected points will be protected from brushing.
Click the Sculpt tool on the Model tab.
Do any of the following:
- Shift-drag to change the size of the brush, or use the Radius control on the operation toolbar (across the top of the viewer).
- Right click to assign operations to and , change the brush shape, and set other options.
- FD on the toolbar controls the amount of displacement caused by brushing with . BD controls the amount caused by brushing with . These are the same as the parameters in the LMB Displacement and MMB Displacement sub-tabs of the Operation tab in the parameter editor.
- Opacity controls how much deformation or smoothing the tool will do with each brush-stroke. This is the same as the Opacity parameter on the Brush tab in the parameter editor.
- Drag across the surface with or to perform the assigned operation on the selected points.

Tip

The brush casts through the surface and sometimes you may find that strokes on the surface deform points on the opposite side of the surface.

You can minimize this by enabling the Depth parameter on the Brush tab in the parameter editor. The Depth values limit how far above and below the surface the brush will cast.

You can copy the Radius parameter and paste it as a relative reference into both Depth fields to create a spherical/cubical (depending on brush shape) brush. This is usually sufficient to eliminate problems casting through, unless you are using a large brush size.

Parameters

Operation

Brush

Goal

Deform Points	Moves each point along its normal.
Smooth Points	Moves each point towards the average of its neighbors. This is a per dab operation, thus does not accumulate a stencil buffer.
Deform and Smooth	Applies both the deformation and a smoothing pass.

Axis, Vector

Determine what direction the deformation occurs in. “Normal” refers to the surface normal at the point; the others are in the object’s coordinates.

Accumulate To Stencil

By default, the operation is applied and the stencil cleared after every brush stroke. With this set, the stencil is not cleared until “Apply and Clear Stencil” is pressed.

Apply & Clear Stencil

Applies the operation and clears the stencil. This is equivalent to right-clicking in the viewport.

Update Displacement Normals

Recomputes the point normals used by the sculpting operation.

LMB/MMB Displacements

Specify the amount by which to displace the surface. If “Accumulate To Stencil” is on, the left mouse does foreground and the middle mouse erases.

Apply To All

Deforms all of the selected geometry.

Reset All Changes

Restores geometry to initial state.

Shape

The basic shape of the brush: circle, square, or bitmap.

Bitmap

What bitmap to use. The alpha channel becomes the brush.

Radius

The radius of the brush when painting in the 3d viewport.

UV Radius

The radius of the brush when painting in the 2d viewport.

Radius Pressure

This controls how much effect the pressure of a stylus will have on the radius. A value of 1 means the radius will go from 0 to the amount in Radius. A value of 0 will mean the radius will always be constant, regardless of pressure. A value of 0.5 will mean the radius will be scaled between one half of Radius and Radius.

Depth

If set, this limits how far the brush will paint along its axis. This can be used if connectivity is disabled to limit the effect of the brush. The first parameter is how deep below the surface the brush should penetrate. The second is how high above the surface it should stop. These values can be negative.

Brush Angle

How far to rotate the brush.

Brush Squash

Amount to squash the brush in the y direction before rotation.

Opacity

The amount to affect the stencil mask.

Opacity Pressure

This controls the how much effect the pressure of a stylus will have on the opacity. It obeys the same scaling as the Radius Pressure.

Brush Splatter

A random noise in the brush’s opacity based upon the position on the brush.

Paper Grain

A random noise on the object’s stencil mask based on the object position.

Soft Edge

Percentage of the brush to be rolled off.

Kernel Function

Which metaball kernel to use for the roll off.

Up Vector Type

How the brush should be oriented on the surface:

Stroke Direction	Oriented in the direction in which the brush moves.
Fixed	Oriented as specified in the Up Vector field.

Up Vector

The fixed up vector to orient brush to.

Usages in other examples

Example name	Example for