2022-2-03 Sculpt/Texture/Paint Module Meeting

Participants: Joe Eager, Daniel Bystedt, Julien Kaspar

Agenda

  • Blog post finalising & visual examples
  • Cloth sculpting demo file
  • Sculpt Colors review & discussions
  • Usefulness of Topology Rake feature
  • Possible next to do’s

Notes

  • Daniel demonstrated his cloth sculpting demo file

    • Examples for general demonstrations and how to use the tools/brushes
    • Showcases current use cases
    • But also highlights missing self intersections & heavy gravity stretching
  • Blog post discussion

    • Went over 2 demo videos that could be included
    • The current draft is basically complete
    • The idea is to have a visual example of all of the improvements combined with Eevee
  • Briefly talked about Extrude operation in sculpt mode

    • Extrude functionality should stay in edit mode
    • Instead switching between modes should be seamless
    • Potentially selection and mask is synced to make this effortless
  • Point raised about Eevee sampling

    • Important for working in Eevee = Samples set to 1 for edit/painting/sculpting modes
    • Or work out some other solution to improve performance
  • Sculpt colors patch

    • Private and module messages didn’t yet lead to any results
    • Set up video call to properly discuss the implementation and reach a conclusion
  • Topology Rake

    • Preserving boundaries is clearly useful
    • Not clear what problem the curvature/stroke setting is solving
    • Needs a clear visual example
  • Next meetings at 9am CET instead

Next To Do’s

  • Get blog post finalised and published at the start of next week
  • Afterwards create patches based on proposed features to review
  • Set up meeting with Hans and other Attribute API devs to get sculpt colors approved
  • Work out topology rake feature use case with clear issue it solves
23 Likes

I agree with all three points.

7 Likes

This :clap: :clap:

Allow FaceSets to be synced with edit mode too please :slight_smile:

7 Likes

Object mode I think in fact also redundant, change the ratio after forgetting to apply the settings for all future operations are single axial stretch, so that is not friendly to newcomers, although occasionally may be useful, but the trouble is very much more than the advantage of the case, and it is not no advantage of the case of other solutions

I kindly request the developers not to remove Mesh Filter brush! It is very useful to do it directly in sculpting mode than to switch modes all the time.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about…? My comment was about syncing masks (and hopefully face sets) in Sculpt mode with selections in Edit mode, not about removing or mixing modes.

There’s no mention of removing the mesh filter brush…

They are thinking of removing the extrude operation in sculpt mode! I am actually not sure of anything such explicit operation in sculpt more but it can be done with mesh filter.

There’s not an extrude brush/tool in sculpt mode, as there’s also not an extrude type in the Mesh Filter.

The only extrude operator that exists right now is part of the Edit Face Set brush in the sculpt dev build, so it’s not even officially in master; so I’m guessing they are discussing if that operator will be added to the next version or not.

Can vulkan support 150-200 million polygon sculpting? :kissing: :kissing: :no_mouth:




2 Likes

Hmm, this will limit the progress of sculpt mode, imho…
Sculpt mode should have it’s own set of basic modeling tools, optimized for the sculpting workflow… those tools should even have the freedom to work differently than the ones in edit mode…
Modeling for sculpting is not the same thing as the regular precise mesh editing that is done in edit mode… trying to mix it is not a good thing…

Anyways, that’s up to you… I just hope that such modeling tools will keep showing up, even if available only in the sculpt dev branch…


By the way, I was expecting some words about voxel remesher improvements… :thinking:

8 Likes

I agree with you. It is time consuming to extrude in edit mode since it’s too precise. Sculpting offers a faster and more intuitive solution for things. Let extrusion remain in both the modes. They will serve 2 different purposes, one for precise and another for intuitiveness. Blender also needs a proper sculpting workflow with good UX so as to minimise the requirement for switching modes constantly.

2 Likes

Totally agree. Extrude and Inset are two basic features that from my point of view have a place in Sculpt Mode, if you want to use FaceSets to perform Hard Modeling. Although FaceSets can be used to make selections in Edit mode, performance on dense meshes can be an issue.

For the inclusion of Extrude in Sculpt Mode it would be good to investigate why it is needed. So specific use cases and workflow examples where it would help. That could also inspire a Tool that would work better for the sculpting workflow than just adding an Extrude operator.

I agree that switching between modes for a single workflow or task is undesirable. Ideally all necessary functionality should be in a single mode.

8 Likes


Many years ago with ZB, following a tutorial that used contouring with faces from FaceSets, I made this model.
I recently tried to replicate the process with Blender and I showed it in this video.

1 Like

Thanks for the example! With planned improvements to the expand operator there are also alternative approaches with existing features to achieve this though.

Let me know what you think. It would be good to explore more ways in which an extrude operator would be useful.

16 Likes

Wait, seriously?
Do you really need explanation/examples to know why an extrude tool is useful in sculpt mode?
Please tell me you’re kidding. ::grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

Sculpt mode needs it’s own set of basic modeling tools like extrude, inset, bevel, loop cut, slide.
This would be magnificent. :+1:

But I kinda feel it’s better to keep slide and loop cut to stay in edit mode… because maintaining so many duplicate operations will also become difficult for developers

2 Likes

The fact that Zbrush has all sorts of poly modeling tools added in a brush doesn’t mean that’s the best way to sculpt and model at the same time… I mean, it is definitely more convenient but not “the best” way to do it, it’s just the Zbrush way of doing it, and it makes sense in that case because it’s a sculpting program, not a DCC.

But, IMO things like extrude, inset, bevel, etc are not sculpt operations, those are more precise by nature, which are easier (and offer more control) to do in edit mode. Maybe what we really need is a way to have a seamless switch between sculpt and edit mode, so people don’t feel like is jumping between them.

3 Likes

Think of the bigger picture : once you get all these modeling operations in sculpt mode, what is the place of edit mode ? alternatively, why not add sculpt brushes to edit mode ? all of this functionality does not get in for free, as @USB10 said it adds to the maintenance cost. Mesh and bmesh being different data structures, operators have to be written for both, and if you have the same functionality in both modes, this questions the relevance of both of them -why not design a polyvalent data structure and merge edit and sculpt modes? I don’t really know whether this is possible. Anyway it’s a broader design question than you realize.
Personally I’d retain topology-altering operators in edit mode, because the entire toolset is thought around them. and confine sculpt mode to deformation tools such as brushes, cloth, etc. But maybe I’m not seeing what the possibilities are -what’s the idea with such operators living in sculpt mode? Do you want to build your base meshes entirely from sculpt mode? What is it with edit mode that doesn’t work for you?

@Regnas would you like to try and answer these questions?

5 Likes

Good technique Julien! It could be solved like this too. Anyway, as you have left it, a few Insets in each FaceSet would make the surrounding faces rim all shapes with nice flow. With Remesh or Dyntopo this is lost, but in the meantime there is good mesh flow in the corners.