Lets you interactively reshape a surface by brushing.
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
| Goal |
| ||||||
| 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. |
Brush
| 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:
| ||||
| Up Vector | The fixed up vector to orient brush to. |
Symmetry
| Reflective | If set, the brush will perform reflective symmetry. Any strokes will be mirrored along the plane of symmetry. |
| Rotational | If set, the brush will perform rotational symmetry. Any strokes will be rotated around the axis of symmetry. |
| Axis | This defines the normal of the plane of symmetry for reflection and the axis of symmetry for rotation. |
| Origin | This defines the origin of the plane of symmetry for reflection and the origin of the axis of symmetry for rotation. |
| Number of Rotate | This defines the degree of rotational symmetry. A degree of 3 means the stroke will be applied 3 times at 120 degree separation. A value of 5 will perform the stroke 5 times with 72 degrees of separation. |
| Reflection Dist | This is the distance of the plane of symmetry from the origin of symmetry. |
| UV Reflection | If set, the brush will reflect when brushing is done in the UV viewport. |
| UV Origin | The origin of the line of reflection in the UV viewport. |
| UV Angle | The angle of the line of reflection in the UV viewport. 0 will mirror about the U axis, 90 will mirror about the V axis. |
Stroke
| Orient Brush to Surface | Switches between the brush being perpendicular to the surface or always oriented along the view direction. If you are having trouble with a shaky brush, try turning this off. |
| Use Connectivity | If set, the tool will only affect points connected to the closest point to the intersection. This is usually a good thing, as it avoids accidentally painting through the geometry (but see the depth parameter), but can prevent smoothly painting across seams. |
| Realtime Mode | Set this to paint geometry as it’s deforming. |
| Direction | The current direction of the brush. If orient to surface is on, this is the normal direction of the surface hit by the brush. Otherwise, it is the direction from the eye to the surface. |
| Hit Location | The current location of the brush. This tracks the surface as the brush moves along it. |
| Hit Primitive | The primitive number of the primitive the current brush is centered at. |
| Hit UV | The location the current brush is on the current primitive. Note this is a parametric UV location, not the texture UV location. |
| Hit Pressure | The amount of force the brush is currently applying. This is only meaningful when a tablet interface that supports pressure is used. |
| Hit Point | The point closest to the current brush’s center. |
| Event | Controls the current state of the brush. When it is on No-op, the values of the stroke tab are ignored and no updating of the geometry is done. Other values are set automatically as you brush the surface, allowing the SOP to update in response to your actions. |