Sculpt Mode is another way to modeling you mesh with Blender. It transform your sculpted prim into a clay model which you can mold with various type of brushes. Blender’s sculpt mode has the same workflow just like Zbrush software it can speed up your work and give a good artistic feeling.
While I wrote this tutorial Second Life only allow low-poly model imported (32×32 sculpt texture) you may find this tool awkward in the first since Sculpt Mode tend to work for a high-poly model but that’s not true. It may seem a bit hard for beginner but when you have more experience and understand the nature of sculpty structure you will find this Sculpt Mode is truely powerful.
Screenshot in this tutorial are using Blender 2.49
Activate Sculpt Mode by click a small drop down menu under 3D scene (see right screenshot) and change to Sculpt Mode.Notice in Sculpt Mode you cursor will change to circle which represent brush size you’re using.
Now, try to click randomly on model to see how sculpt brush work.
To control effect of sculpt brush you need to set them in Sculpt Properties.Sculpt Properties can access by hover your mouse over 3D scene and press key “N”. In Sculpt Properties there are various setting but it’s not hard to understand.
Draw Brush : smoothly lift mesh surface.
Smooth Brush : clear rough surface.
Pinch Brush : pulls vertices to your cursor position.
Inflate Brush : lift up surface in their normal direction.
Grab Brush : move surface by your mouse direction.
Layer Brush : lift up surface by layer.
Flatten Brush : lower your mesh surface.
Add Button : Brush interact with mesh surface by pulling it up.
Sub Button : Brush interact with mesh surface by pushing it down.
Airbrush Button : All brush will continues increase effect even you not move your mouse. (longer your mouse pressed harder the effect are.)
Size : set your brush size.
Strength : set how hard your brush interact with surface.
Symmetry X, Y, Z : Clone the brush effect on the axis you selected.
LockAxis X, Y, Z : Lock an axis you selected to protect the mesh from brush effect.
Masking : Press Ctrl+Shift+Life Click and drag to draw rectangular on the mesh part you want to work on. After you release your mouse the other part of sculpted prim will be hidden and do not receive brush effect.This is useful when you want to focus on some part of model and not want the other area to modify by brush effect.
When finished modeling cancel masking by press Ctrl+H.
