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- Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Sculpting the Blender Way is a detailed step-by-step guide for creating digital art with the latest Blender 3D sculpting features. With over 400 reference images, 18 Sculpting in Action videos, and dozens of 3D sculpture example files, this book is an invaluable resource for traditional and digital sculptors looking to try their hand at sculpting in Blender.
The first part of the book will teach you how to navigate Blender's user interface and familiarize yourself with the core workflows, as well as gain an understanding of how the sculpting features work, including basic sculpting, Dyntopo, the Voxel Remesher, QuadriFlow, and Multiresolution.
You’ll also learn about a wide range of brushes and all of the latest additions to the sculpting feature set, such as Face Sets, Mesh Filters, and the Cloth brush. The next chapters will show you how to customize these brushes and features to create fantastic 3D sculptures that you can share with the ever-growing Blender community.
By the end of this book, you'll have gained a complete understanding of the core sculpting workflows and be able to use Blender to bring your digital characters to life.
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Sculpting the Blender Way
Explore Blender's 3D sculpting workflows and latest features, including Face Sets, Mesh Filters, and the Cloth brush
Xury Greer
BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI
Sculpting the Blender Way
Copyright © 2022 Packt Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.
Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.
Group Product Manager: Rohit Rajkumar
Publishing Product Manager: Kaustubh Manglurkar
Senior Editor: Hayden Edwards
Content Development Editor: Abhishek Jadhav
Technical Editor: Saurabh Kadave
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First published: January 2022
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Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
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ISBN 978-1-80107-387-5
www.packt.com
To my friends in SeaBUG: The Seattle Blender User Group. Thank you all for helping me grow as a 3D artist. Because of you, I've learned so much and had a chance to share my passion. I'm excited to finally send this book out into the world where I hope it will inspire others as much as this group has inspired me!
- Xury Greer
Contributors
About the author
Xury Greer is a digital media generalist and educator in the Greater Seattle area. He earned his bachelor's degree in game design from Lake Washington Institute of Technology. He specializes in 3D characters, and technical art, and loves to share his knowledge. Xury is an avid member and co-organizer of the Seattle Blender User Group, and aims to help others by teaching Blender, as well as other 3D content creation tools. He is always excited to get new users started on their digital media production journey.
About the reviewer
Mohamed Essam El Deen Farouk is a 3D character artist from Egypt. He has a passion for sculpting 3D character models using Blender 3D's Substance Painter and Unreal Engine pipeline.
Making 3D models for video games has been his primary objective since college, which is why he decided to learn how to make 3D models with such an amazing pipeline as Blender 3D sometime after graduation.
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: Exploring Blender's User Interface for Sculpting
Technical requirements
Installing Blender
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more...
See also
Understanding Blender's user interface
Getting ready
How to do it…
Expanding and collapsing the Toolbar and the Sidebar
Getting ready
How to do it…
There's more…
Exploring the viewport shading modes
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Customizing solid shading mode with the pop-over menu
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Using viewport overlays
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Navigating the 3D Viewport
Getting ready
How to do it…
There's more…
See also
Setting up your graphics tablet's stylus buttons
Getting ready
How to do it…
See also
Chapter 2: Overview of Blender's Sculpting Workflows
Technical requirements
Understanding the components of a 3D sculpture
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Pushing polys with the basic sculpting mode
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Discovering the limitations of the basic sculpting mode
Getting ready
How to do it…
Creating dynamic topology with Dyntopo
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Practicing the basics of the Voxel Remesher
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Using the Voxel Remesher in a low-to-high detail workflow
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Exploring the most powerful sculpting mode – multiresolution
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Chapter 3: Sculpting a Simple Character Head with Basic Brushes
Technical requirements
Creating the large forms of the head with the Grab brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Using masks to add the neck and ears
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Building up the nose and brow with the Clay Strips brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Smoothing the lumpy and jagged surfaces of the sculpture
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Creating a bulbous nose and cheeks with the Inflate brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Adding basic eyes and eyelids to the character
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Adding detail to the ears with the Crease brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Creating the mouth with the Draw Sharp brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
Sharpening details with the Pinch brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
There's more…
See also
Chapter 4: How to Make a Base Mesh for a 3D Sculpture
Technical requirements
Creating and transforming primitive objects
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Creating a base mesh with box modeling
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Using the Skin modifier to turn wireframe structures into thick skins
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Using Metaballs to build blob-like 3D forms
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
See also
Inserting meshes and cutting holes with Booleans
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
See also
Using the Lasso Trim tool to add and remove geometry
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Making sure our base mesh is ready for sculpting
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Chapter 5: Learning the Power of Subdivision and the Multiresolution Workflow
Technical requirements
An overview of topology
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Generating an all-quad mesh with QuadriFlow
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Exploring subdivision surfaces
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
See also
Understanding when you're ready for multiresolution
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Using the Multiresolution modifier
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Recapturing details from the previous mesh
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Changing resolution for the appropriate details
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Chapter 6: Using Advanced Features and Customizing the Sculpting Brushes
Technical requirements
Using custom falloff
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Exploring custom stroke options
Getting ready
How to do it…
There's more…
See also
Setting up custom alpha textures
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Using face sets as automatic masks
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Cleaving off flat sections with the Line Project tool
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Creating advanced masks with Sculpt Expand
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Posing fingers with the Pose brush
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Chapter 7: Making Eyeballs
Technical requirements
Creating standard clay eyeballs
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
See also
Adding color to the eyeballs
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
See also
Adding depth and realism to the eyeballs
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
See also
Creating insect eyeballs with extrusion tools
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
There's more
Creating a cartoon eyeball using a Lattice
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
See also
Creating a stylized anime eye
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
There's more
Aiming the eyeballs with Constraints
Getting ready
How to do it
How it works
Chapter 8: Making Accessories and Clothing
Technical requirements
Making earrings
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Using Mask Extract to make a shirt
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
See also
Using the Cloth brush to add wrinkles to the shirt
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Using the Cloth Filter to create a collar for the shirt
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Preparing a shirt mesh for a cloth simulation
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Simulating cloth to wrap a shirt around a character
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Sculpting a hat with Radial Symmetry
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Chapter 9: Creating Teeth, Eyebrows, and Hair
Technical requirements
Creating tusks and teeth for an orc
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Creating stylized mesh eyebrows with modifiers
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Creating realistic eyebrows with hair particles
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Extracting hair from the scalp
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Visualizing the silhouette of sculpted hair
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Roughing out the shape of sculpted hair
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
See also
Adding surface details to sculpted hair
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
See also
Creating long flowing hair with curves
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Chapter 10: Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio
Technical requirements
Setting up Rendered mode
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Adding three-point lighting to the scene
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Lighting up the environment with an HDRI
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Creating a clay material for the sculpture
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Using a camera to render the sculpture
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
Setting up a turntable for a 360-degree render
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
Exporting the final render
Getting ready
How to do it…
How it works…
There's more…
See also
Other Books You May Enjoy
Preface
Blender 3D is a free and open source program that can be used for every part of the 3D production pipeline. It has several robust feature sets for creating 3D art that have contributed to its rising popularity in the last few years. Sculpting is perhaps the most enjoyable and artistic method for creating 3D art as it relies less on technical knowledge and focuses on artistic brushes. The latest release of Blender makes the sculpting feature set more powerful than ever, so now is an excellent time to learn it! This book covers the expansive list of features in the Blender 2.93 LTS release, as well as the exciting all-new Blender 3.0 release. This book will be an excellent resource for professionals who need a production-ready long-term support release of the software, as well as hobbyists looking for a cutting-edge experience.
Sculpting the Blender Way will demonstrate how to navigate Blender's user interface and take you through the core workflows. You'll gain a detailed understanding of how the sculpting features work, including basic sculpting, Dyntopo, the Voxel Remesher, QuadriFlow, and Multiresolution. This Blender book will cover a wide range of brushes, as well as all of the latest additions to the sculpting feature set, such as Face Sets, Mesh Filters, and the Cloth brush. You'll learn how to customize these brushes and features to create fantastic 3D sculptures that you can share with the ever-growing Blender community.
By the end of this book, you'll have gained a complete understanding of the core sculpting workflows and be able to use Blender to bring your digital characters to life.
Who this book is for
This book is for artists who want to get started with the exciting new sculpting features in Blender 3D. Whether you have experience using ZBrush or traditional sculpting, or are completely new to sculpting, this book will have something new for you to learn. Prior experience with Blender or other 3D software may be helpful but is not required.
However, a graphics tablet from Wacom, XP-Pen, or Huion is highly recommended to be able to follow along with the concepts and examples covered in the book.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Exploring Blender's User Interface for Sculpting, gets us started with Blender's user interface as it pertains to sculpting. We'll learn how to install the latest version of Blender and learn about the important areas of the UI. We'll cover viewport shading options, basic navigation, and how to set up your graphics tablet for sculpting in Blender.
Chapter 2, Overview of Blender's Sculpting Workflows, covers which workflows should be used at any given stage of the sculpting process. We'll discover the components that make up a 3D sculpture and learn how brushes can be used to manipulate these components. We will learn the difference between Blender's basic sculpting tools, the Dyntopo feature, the Voxel Remesher workflow, and finally the Multiresolution modifier. Learning the difference between these features is key to making high-quality 3D sculptures in Blender.
Chapter 3, Sculpting a Simple Character Head with Basic Brushes, takes us through a simple character sculpture project. We will learn how to use several of the basic sculpting brushes to make the large features of a sculpture. We'll learn some beginner techniques for creating a head, neck, ears, nose, brow, cheeks, eyes, and mouth. We'll practice with a variety of brushes for each of these tasks and build familiarity with the Voxel Remesher workflow.
Chapter 4, How to Make a Base Mesh for a 3D Sculpture, explores several ways to create base meshes that we can use as the foundation for multiresolution sculpting. These methods range from the classic Box Modeling approach to some of Blender's fun features, including the Skin modifier, Metaballs, and the Lasso Trim tool.
Chapter 5, Learning the Power of Subdivision and the Multiresolution Workflow, explains how subdivision surfaces work and why they are so powerful. We will dive deeper into understanding how the components of a 3D sculpture work together to form a topology that can be used for the multiresolution workflow. We'll explore the difference between a mesh with dynamic topology, voxel remeshed topology, and all-quad topology that will retain its shape during subdivision. Once we have an understanding of how subdivision works, we will learn how to use the Multiresolution modifier to sculpt high-resolution details into a subdivided mesh.
Chapter 6, Using Advanced Features and Customizing the Sculpting Brushes, explains how Blender's brushes can be customized to suit our advanced sculpting needs. We'll learn how to adjust the brush falloff, use custom stroke settings, and add alpha textures to our brushes for sculpting intricate details. We'll practice using some advanced tools and brush settings and learn how to control our brushes with automatic masking options, Face Sets, and the Sculpt Expand operator.
Chapter 7, Making Eyeballs, shows off several ways of making eyeballs for our sculptures. Sculptures can be made in many art styles, so we will learn how to make eyes that fit a variety of styles, including standard clay eyeballs, hand-painted eyes, realistic eyeballs, insect eyes, elongated cartoon eyes, and stylized anime eyes. We'll also learn how to use constraints to aim the eyes at a target for an intuitive way to pose the eyes.
Chapter 8, Making Accessories and Clothing, showcases how sculpting can be supplemented with other 3D modeling techniques to create accessories for our 3D models. We'll start with some modeling tools for creating earrings. Next, we'll learn about several ways of creating cloth for our sculptures using the Mask Extract operator, Cloth brush, and the Cloth Filter. We'll cover basic cloth simulation tools, as well as some tips for manually sculpting cloth, including the Radial Symmetry feature.
Chapter 9, Creating Teeth, Eyebrows, and Hair, highlights the importance of creating secondary features for our characters. We'll learn how to create teeth as separate objects and place them in a character's mouth. We'll explore several ways of making hair, including mesh hair, particle hair, sculpted hair, and hair curves. We will see several practical examples of these techniques used for making eyebrows and hair.
Chapter 10, Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio, brings us to the end of the sculpting process. We'll learn how to render our sculptures so that they can be displayed in a portfolio. We'll start by setting up our render settings and learn about Blender's two render engines: Cycles and Eevee. We'll cover basic three-point lighting, environment lighting with an HDRI, and how to set up basic materials for the sculpture. We'll learn how to set up a camera and a 360-degree turntable for rendering. Our finished renders can then be uploaded to our portfolios and shared with the world!
To get the most out of this book
You will need an internet connection to download the latest version of Blender and the source files for the projects (an internet connection is not required after downloading the software and the files).
Blender requires about 670 MB of storage space to install. The project files in this book are approximately 1.1 GB all together (you do not need to download them all at once). It's a good idea to have at least 1 GB of additional free storage so that you can create your own 3D sculptures and renders. In total, about 3 GB of space should be enough for everything covered in this book.
This book has been tested for Blender 2.93 LTS. Blender 3.0 was released shortly before this book's publication and is also compatible, although there are some very subtle user interface differences from the reference images. Future Blender releases should remain compatible as well, however the Blender Foundation is always looking for ways to improve software.
A graphics tablet with pressure sensitivity is highly recommended for following along with this book.
A graphics card from Nvidia is recommended for the best experience in Chapter 10, Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio, although the Blender Foundation is actively working to support graphics cards from other brands.
The Blender Foundation maintains several versions of Blender at the same time. Version 2.93 LTS is a Long-term Support release for users who want the most stable version of the software. You can download it here: https://www.blender.org/download/lts/2-93/.
Version 3.0 is the latest release with new features. This cutting-edge version has not been available as long as the LTS version, so some bugs may be present. You can download it here: https://www.blender.org/download/.
Either version of Blender will be perfect for following along in this book. However, version 3.0 or later is recommended for following along with Chapter 10, Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio, since there have been major performance improvements for the Cycles render engine.
Download the example files
You can download the example files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Sculpting-the-Blender-Way. If there's an update to the file, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.
We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!
Sculpting in Action
The Sculpting in Action videos for this book can be viewed at https://bit.ly/3IyA20X.
Download the color images
We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801073875_ColorImages.pdf.
Conventions used
There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.
Code in text: Indicates code words in the text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "We will continue where we left off in the previous section, using the childHead.blend file."
Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "Click on the Type: drop-down menu next to the Cavity checkbox."
Tips or Important Notes
Appear like this.
Get in touch
Feedback from our readers is always welcome.
General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [email protected] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.
Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.
Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [email protected] with a link to the material.
If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.
Share Your Thoughts
Once you've read Sculpting the Blender Way, we'd love to hear your thoughts! Please select https://www.amazon.in/review/create-review/error?asin=%3C1801073872%3E for this book and share your feedback.
Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we're delivering excellent quality content.
Chapter 1: Exploring Blender's User Interface for Sculpting
Welcome to Sculpting the Blender Way. Blender is a free and open-source 3D modeling suite, which means it has tools for creating 3D art with many different workflows. The sculpting workflow is widely considered to be the most fun and artistic approach. Blender includes all of the sculpting features you need to create amazing organic 3D artwork and characters. Blender has seen countless improvements to the sculpting process over the last year, so now is an excellent time to learn how to sculpt in Blender.
In this chapter, we will learn how to use Blender's user interface as it pertains to sculpting. No prior knowledge of 3D modeling or sculpting is required to follow along with this book, so don't worry if this is your first experience making 3D art of any kind. The Blender Foundation has created a list of features that you can read about here: https://www.blender.org/features/. This book will be focusing on the sculpting feature set, so we will not be going in depth on the other features. All concepts and workflows in this book will be introduced from the perspective of 3D sculpting.
We'll start with how to install the software. Next, we'll learn about the editors within Blender's user interface and how we can customize the interface for a streamlined sculpting workflow. We'll learn about Blender's powerful viewport customization features for shading and overlays. We'll have a look at the Toolbar and the Sidebar within the 3D Viewport. And we'll practice navigation in 3D since we will be doing that a lot during our sculpting workflow. We'll wrap up this chapter by learning the importance of using a graphics tablet and how to set up the drivers for the best sculpting experience.
By the end of this chapter, you'll have a foundational understanding of the Blender software and its user interface, and you'll be prepared to try out the sculpting features in the next chapter.
The topics in this chapter are as follows:
Installing BlenderUnderstanding Blender's user interfaceExpanding and collapsing the Toolbar and the SidebarExploring the viewport shading modesCustomizing solid shading mode with the pop-over menuUsing viewport overlaysNavigating the 3D ViewportSetting up your graphics tablet's stylus buttonsTechnical requirements
For sculpting in Blender, you will of course need a computer that can run the latest version of Blender. Blender works on all major operating systems, including Windows 8.1, 10, and 11, macOS 10.13+, and Linux. 3D sculpting primarily utilizes the CPU and RAM. A high-end graphics card (GPU) can help for rendering and viewport performance but isn't as important for sculpting performance as the CPU and RAM. You can read more about Blender's hardware requirements here: https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/.
We will need a recent version of Blender that has the latest sculpting features. The features we need are available in Blender version 2.93 and later. Blender 2.93 is a Long-Term Support (LTS) release, so it will get continued support and fixes until June 2023. Blender does not currently have an auto-updater, so if you've downloaded Blender before, you should check that you have at least version 2.93.6 before following along with this book.
Important Note
Blender receives several major features updates every year; version 3.0 will be released around the same time as this book's publication. Version 3.0 begins a new series of Blender releases; it comes with many new features and a slightly adjusted color scheme for the user interface. However, all of the sculpting information and examples in this book will be will still be 100% relevant and up to date for Blender 3.0.
It is possible to follow along with this book using a mouse, but it is highly recommended that you use a graphics tablet for all sculpting. Because this book is primarily about the sculpting features in Blender, you will not get the intended experience unless you have a graphics tablet.
This book includes several files that we've prepared for you to help demonstrate some of the sculpting features. You can download the files to follow along with this book at the GitHub link here: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Sculpting-the-Blender-Way.
Installing Blender
First, we'll need to download the latest version of Blender. Blender is available through the Blender Foundation's official website. You do not need to register an account or pay license fees or anything like that; Blender is 100% free and open source!
Getting ready
Make sure your computer meets the requirements for Blender, as mentioned in the Technical requirements section, and then head over to the download page of the Blender website: https://www.blender.org/download/. The website will automatically detect your computer's operating system so you don't have to worry about choosing the correct version.
Now, let's install Blender.
How to do it…
To install Blender from the Blender Foundation website, follow these instructions:
Navigate to https://www.blender.org/download/.Click on the Download Blender... button.Once the installer file has been downloaded, click to open the installation wizard.Follow the prompts in the installation wizard to finish installing Blender.If you prefer to use a portable version of Blender that you can install to a thumb drive, follow these instructions:
Click on the macOS, Linux, and other versions drop-down list.Choose the Windows Portable (.zip) option.Once the .zip file finishes downloading, unzip it to your portable thumb drive so that you can take it with you.Blender can be launched from your thumb drive by double-clicking on the blender.exe executable file.And that's all there is to it! Congratulations – you're ready to use Blender!
How it works…
The installer version of Blender will automatically put the appropriate files into your computer's default program files directory. The portable version keeps all of the unzipped files in a portable directory so that you can take Blender with you on a thumb drive.
There's more...
Alternatively, Blender can be installed via the Microsoft Store or the Steam client. You will need an account to install Blender from these services, but the software is still 100% free. Using one of these services is completely optional.
If you prefer to manage your Blender installation with either the Microsoft Store or the Steam client, you can choose the appropriate store page from the drop-down list on the Blender website or use the following links:
Microsoft Store: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/blender/9pp3c07gtvrhSteam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/365670/Blender/See also
As stated at the beginning of this chapter, this book will focus on Blender's sculpting features. If you would like to learn more about Blender's other features in a project-based workflow, check out Blender 3D by Example (2nd Edition) from Packt Publishing.
Understanding Blender's user interface
Blender's User Interface (UI) is highly customizable and offers several presets for different workflows. For this book, we will take a look at Blender's UI as it pertains to the sculpting workflow. Luckily for us, Blender includes a project template specifically for sculpting, so getting started will be easy and we'll be well on our way to exploring the UI.
Getting ready
Launch Blender so that we can take a look at the UI. You'll be greeted by Blender's splash screen. The splash screen is a little floating window that provides quick access to your recent Blender projects and a few helpful links. The first time you launch Blender, the splash screen will provide you with a Quick Setup option, as you can see in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.1 – The Blender splash screen
We recommend leaving all of these settings at their defaults so that your keyboard shortcuts and other settings will match the instructions in this book. You can close the splash screen by clicking anywhere in the UI outside of the splash screen area.
Once the quick setup is finished and the splash screen is closed, we can load the sculpting preset so that the UI won't be cluttered with features that we don't need. Then, we can explore the UI as it pertains to sculpting.
How to do it…
Before we explore the UI, let's load the sculpting preset so that the UI won't be cluttered with features that we don't need:
Click on the File menu in the top-left corner of the UI. Choose New | Sculpting to start a new file with the sculpting preset.Blender's UI is broken into several sections called editors. Each editor provides a unique way for us to see the contents of the Blender file. In the sculpting preset, there are three editors available to us, as you can see in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.2 – The three editors in the sculpting preset
Let's take a look at each editor:
The 3D Viewport is the largest part of the UI, and it's where we will be spending most of our time while sculpting. Here, we can see our 3D sculpture and work with our sculpting tools.The Outliner provides us with a list of all objects in the scene. We won't be doing a lot of work in this editor early on, but it will become very useful for organizing the contents of our Blender files later.The Properties editor gives us lots of extra control over our models; from here, we can apply modifiers, materials, and add other advanced features to our sculptures. We will use this editor from time to time, especially in the later chapters in this book.At the very top of every editor is a header. The top-left corner of the header has an icon for the editor type. For example, the top-left corner of the 3D Viewport has an icon representing its editor type, as you can see in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.3 – The 3D Viewport icon as seen in the top-left corner of the 3D Viewport header
Clicking this icon will allow us to replace this editor with another type of editor and customize the UI for our needs. Luckily, the sculpting preset has already arranged the UI for the sculpting workflow, so we don't need to make any changes.
The 3D Viewport is the most important editor for our sculpting workflow. Not only does it contain a window for us to see our sculpture but it also contains brushes, settings, and other advanced ways for us to interact with our sculpture. The 3D Viewport can be further broken down into several regions. The regions are highlighted in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.4 – The six regions in the 3D Viewport
The first three regions are part of the header:
Along the top of the header for the 3D Viewport is a list of tool settings. We will use these options for customizing our sculpting tools. Settings for our tools can be accessed in a number of places in Blender's UI, but the tool settings section in the header is the most convenient.Slightly below the tool settings along the left side of the header, we can see the mode and menus for the 3D Viewport. The Interaction Mode determines the toolset and workflow we are currently using. Since we created this file with the sculpting preset, the Interaction Mode is set to Sculpt Mode. We will spend most of our time in this book using Sculpt Mode. However, there will be times where we switch to Object Mode or Edit Mode to make extra changes to our sculptures outside of the sculpting workflow. This region also has several menus: View, Sculpt, Mask, and Face Sets. These menus have lots of operations that we can perform while in Sculpt Mode; we will learn to use some of these operations later.The final part of the header can be found in the top-right corner. This section has options for customizing the display and shading settings for the viewport; here, we can adjust the viewport gizmos, overlays, shading, and more.Below the header, there are several regions that can be found along the left and right sides of the 3D Viewport. Continuing the numbering shown in the previous image, these regions are as follows:
Along the left side of the 3D Viewport, we have the Toolbar. The Toolbar is full of icons for the brushes that we will use for sculpting.Moving over to the right side of the viewport, we have the navigation gizmo. This can be used for viewport navigation and will allow us to look at our sculpture from different angles.Lastly, we have the Sidebar. The Sidebar contains extra information about our objects, such as Location, Rotation, and Scale. It also provides an alternative area of the UI where we can adjust tool settings. We won't be using the Sidebar often during our sculpting workflow, so don't worry about it for now.You may have noticed that the Sidebar is missing from the sculpting preset. This is because it is collapsed by default, but many regions can be expanded or collapsed to suit our needs. Check out the next topic of this chapter to see how to expand/collapse the Sidebar.
Expanding and collapsing the Toolbar and the Sidebar
Both the Toolbar on the left side and the Sidebar on the right side of the 3D Viewport can be expanded to show more of their contents or collapsed entirely while we aren't using them.
We will spend a lot of time with the Toolbar since all of our sculpting brushes can be found there. Tools can be chosen from the Toolbar by clicking on them. Only one tool can be active at a time; the active tool will be highlighted blue. By default, the Toolbar is in a minimized state, so all we can see are icons. It can be very helpful to expand the Toolbar and display the names of the tools next to the tool icons. Expanding the Sidebar will also give us more information while we work with our tools.
Let's learn how to expand and collapse the Toolbar and the Sidebar.
Getting ready
If you haven't already loaded the sculpting preset, do so now. The tools available on the Toolbar will be different for each Interaction Mode, so make sure you're still in Sculpt Mode before trying to follow along.
How to do it…
The Toolbar can be partially expanded to have two vertical columns, or it can be expanded fully to display the names of the tools. Let's expand it now:
Hover your mouse over the right-side edge of the Toolbar until your mouse pointer changes to the resizing cursor.Click and drag to the right to expand the Toolbar, as shown in the following screenshot:Figure 1.5 – Expanding the Toolbar
Being able to see the names of the tools will be helpful while we practice using the tools later in this book.
Just like the Toolbar on the left side, the Sidebar on the right side can be expanded or collapsed. In the sculpting preset, the Sidebar is collapsed by default. While a region is collapsed, you will see a little arrow indicating that the region can be expanded. In this case, the indicator can be seen along the right side of the 3D Viewport near the navigation gizmo, as shown in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.6 – The "<" indicator for expanding the Sidebar
This indicator can be clicked on to expand the Sidebar. Let's try expanding the Sidebar now:
Hover your mouse over the expand region indicator.Either click once and release or click and drag the indicator to the left to expand the Sidebar.The expanded Sidebar can be seen in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.7 – The expanded Sidebar
The contents of the Sidebar are organized into several vertical tabs, including View, Tool, and Item. The Item tab contains transform data for our active object, the Tool tab contains lots of settings for our active tool, and the View tab contains settings for our viewport, camera, and 3D Cursor. We will learn to use some of these settings as they become relevant to our workflow. Many of these settings can also be accessed from the header of the 3D Viewport, which is why the Sidebar is collapsed by default in the sculpting preset.
Let's collapse the Sidebar again to get it out of our way:
Hover your mouse over the left-side edge of the expanded Sidebar.Click and drag the edge of the Sidebar to the right until it collapses back into the side of the 3D Viewport.We'll learn much more about the tools and the settings in the Sidebar throughout the rest of this book.
There's more…
You can gain quick access to these two regions with hotkeys. Hover your mouse inside the 3D Viewport before pressing a hotkey, then press the T hotkey to open or close the Toolbar, or press the N hotkey to open or close the Sidebar.
Exploring the viewport shading modes
As we saw earlier in this chapter, the 3D Viewport has a region for customizing the display and shading settings. In this topic, we will take a look at the different viewport shading modes available to us.
Getting ready
The viewport shading modes that we are about to see will work in any Blender project. However, it will be difficult to show off these modes without a proper model. We have provided the childHead.blend file for you so that you can follow along with this topic. You can download the file here: https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Sculpting-the-Blender-Way/blob/main/Chapter01/childHead.blend.
Once you've downloaded the example file, open it in Blender by either double-clicking the file or dragging the file into the Blender window and choosing Open. Inside this file, you'll find a nearly identical setup to the sculpting preset we saw earlier. However, this file contains a character sculpture instead of a basic sphere, as you can see in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.8 – The childHead.blend file with a sculpture on display in the 3D Viewport
Now that we have a proper file to demonstrate with, let's explore the shading modes.
How to do it…
Let's focus our attention on the shading modes in the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport. The right half of the display and shading region has several options for viewport shading, as you can see in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.9 – Viewport shading options
In this section, we have an icon for toggling the X-ray feature, followed by four small sphere icons for toggling between our shading modes: Wireframe, Solid, Material Preview, and Rendered. The second of the four sphere icons will be highlighted, indicating that we are currently using solid shading mode. Solid shading is the default when we create new projects in Blender.
Now, let's work our way through these shading options and see how they affect the viewport shading:
Click the Toggle X-Ray button to turn on the X-ray feature. Have a look at what the X-ray feature has done to the display of the sculpture:Figure 1.10 – X-ray turned off (left side)/X-ray turned on (right side)
It looks a little creepy, but it can be helpful for determining the intersection and depth of multiple objects. In this case, we can see that the character's eyeballs are much larger than they originally appeared to be. We can turn on this feature whenever we need it, but we're done with it for now, so let's turn it off and move on.
Click the Toggle X-Ray button to turn the X-ray feature off again.Tip
Toggling X-ray mode on and off can also be done with the Alt + Z keyboard shortcut, as long as we have our mouse hovering over the 3D Viewport.
Up next are the four shading modes. These four spheres icons are organized from left to right in order of our typical workflow as well as how much processing power is required to display them. Let's work our way from left to right:
Click on the first of the four sphere icons to set the shading mode to Wireframe:Figure 1.11 – Wireframe shading mode
Wireframe mode doesn't render the surface of the sculpture; it only draws the edges that make up the geometry of the model. There's not much to see here, so let's move on to the other shading modes. We already saw the second shading mode, Solid. This was the default setting when we first opened this file, so we'll skip it and move on to the third shading mode, Material Preview.
Click on the third of the four sphere icons to set the shading mode to Material Preview:Figure 1.12 – Material Preview shading mode
Material Preview gives our sculpture a much more interesting look. Note how the skin has color and translucency, the eyes are shiny, and the character's nose, ears, and lips have slight red coloration. This is all because Material Preview mode gives us far more control over the materials that our sculptures are made of. For this file, the colors were painted, and the materials were set up ahead of time (you're welcome). For your own sculptures, you'll have to do this work yourself. The only thing that's missing from this mode is some lighting; that's where the fourth and final shading mode comes in, so let's look at it now.
Click on the fourth and final of the four sphere icons to set the shading mode to Rendered:Figure 1.13 – Rendered shading mode
The difference here is subtle, but in this shading mode, we can set up custom lighting for our sculptures. We have to set up the lighting ourselves, but there's no better way to display a finished sculpture in all its glory than a final rendered image!
Now we have successfully explored the different viewport shading modes.
How it works…
For the majority of this book, we will only be using solid shading mode; it is the most practical shading mode because it offers the fastest sculpting performance while we work on our sculptures.
X-ray mode can be toggled on or off whenever you think it will help. In this example, being able to see the size and placement of the character's eyeballs can be very helpful while sculpting the eyelids and cheeks for the character.
Wireframe shading mode isn't very useful for sculpting, it is primarily used in other 3D modeling workflows, but it can be helpful for highlighting the geometry that the sculpture is made of. We'll learn more about the geometry of our sculptures in Chapter 2, Overview of Blender's Sculpting Workflows.
Material Preview gives us much better control over the materials that our object is made out of and looks a lot better than our previous modes. However, this comes at a price. Firstly, this display mode takes a lot of processing power, which means our sculpting tools won't work very well while we're in this mode. The other drawback is that we have to spend time setting up how these materials will look.
Rendered mode is used after we finish setting up our materials. We can set up our custom lighting in this final mode. Most digital art you will find in portfolios is created with this mode since it produces the highest-quality image. We'll learn how to show off our sculptures using this mode in Chapter 10, Rendering Sculptures for Your Portfolio.
Customizing solid shading mode with the pop-over menu
Now that we've seen the different shading modes available to us, let's take a look at how to adjust some of the settings for solid shading mode. Using the correct settings can help for optimizing sculpting performance as well as give us the best visual feedback during our sculpting workflow.
Getting ready
The viewport customization that we are about to explore will work in any Blender project. However, many of the settings will be difficult to demonstrate without a proper model, so we will be using the childHead.blend file again.
How to do it…
Have another look at the viewport shading options in the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport. We need to return to solid shading mode so that we can learn how to customize the solid shading:
Click on the second of the four sphere icons to set the shading mode to Solid.On the far-right side of the four shading mode icons, there is a little arrow for opening a pop-over menu. This menu will give us full control over the viewport shading options.
Click on the little down arrow to the right of the four sphere icons to open the Viewport Shading pop-over menu, as shown in the following screenshot:Figure 1.14 – The Viewport Shading pop-over menu
Excellent – now we can customize how our solid shading looks. First of all, we have our Lighting style. We have three options: Studio, MatCap, and Flat.
The sculpting preset for Blender sets our lighting mode to MatCap by default. MatCap stands for Material Capture. It is highly optimized for viewport performance since it does not actually require our computers to calculate lighting on the model while we sculpt. We highly recommend you stay in MatCap mode whenever sculpting, especially if you notice your computer slowing down while trying to sculpt. MatCap shading has an added benefit of overriding the materials in the viewport with a previously captured material.
Right now, we're using a gray clay material, but let's try swapping out our MatCap with a different material:
Click on the MatCap button if it isn't already active.Click on the colored sphere below the MatCap button to open a list of materials, as seen in the following screenshot:Figure 1.15 – The default selection of MatCaps
Click on the MatCap you would like to use.We will continue the rest of this book with the standard gray clay MatCap, but feel free to use whichever MatCap works best for you.
If we can't get the level of customization that we need from MatCaps, we can use the next best thing, studio lighting. The eyes for this character look kind of lifeless; this is mostly because there is no reflectivity in the eyes when we use MatCaps. Let's fix that now.
Click on the Studio button to activate studio lighting mode:Figure 1.16 – MatCap lighting (left side)/Studio lighting (right side)
There, that's looking a lot better. In studio lighting, individual materials can be set to have different amounts of roughness. In this case, the eyes were set up ahead of time to have a very low roughness, so they look shiny.
The final of the three lighting options is flat lighting. Flat lighting can be useful for painting colors because it eliminates all shading from the surface of the sculpture. But right now, that's not a particularly helpful thing to do, so let's move on to our other settings.
We'll take a look at one more helpful shading option in the pop-over menu before we wrap up this section, Cavity (don't worry, our character doesn't have to go to the dentist; these are the good kind of cavities!). Let's take a look:
Check the box for Cavity in the pop-over menu.This option highlights the ridges and valleys of our sculpture. We have two types of cavity displays, Screen Space and World Space. We can even use both at the same time!
Click on the Type: drop-down menu next to the Cavity checkbox.Choose Both.Turning on both types of cavity displays can be very helpful for determining how sharp we need to make the edges of our sculptures. We can also more easily see how convex or concave a particular surface is. We recommend using this cavity feature while sculpting; you can turn it on for any of your sculpting projects.
There are other shading options for you to explore, but these are the most important shading options for sculpting.
How it works…
MatCaps are a standard feature in sculpting software because they look pretty good and they require very little processing power. This is a good thing because it means our computers can run fast while we sculpt. You may choose any MatCap you like. Obviously, some will be more practical than others. Most users stick to the gray or red clay, but some of the MatCaps are great for previewing other materials, such as 3D printed resin, car paint, or chrome.
Some of these MatCaps may look strange and impractical, but they can be very helpful. For instance, the vertically and horizontally striped MatCaps are excellent for helping to preview how lumpy or smooth the surface of a sculpture is.
Studio lighting gives us more accurate lighting and specular highlights. It's fine to use this mode while sculpting, but if you notice your computer slowing down, you may need to switch to MatCap lighting.
The cavity feature is very helpful while trying to visualize how smooth a surface is. We can also see shadows and highlights in the valleys and ridges of the sculpture, which is helpful for making sharp edges such as eyelids. You may even find that it helps for finding areas that have been over-sharpened.
Remember that you'll have to set these settings for each of your sculpting projects.
Using viewport overlays
Very similar to the shading options, we have another set of features called overlays. Overlays are extra parts of the viewport that are drawn on top of the regular shading features. This includes things like object outlines and grids.
Let's learn how to use viewport overlays to turn on features that will help us visualize some of the details of our scene, such as the position of the sculpture in 3D space.
Getting ready
We will continue where we left off in the previous topic using the childHead.blend file.
How to do it…
Overlays can be turned on and off either as a group, or individually. Turning overlays on can give us valuable information while we work on our sculptures, but sometimes all the visual clutter can be distracting while we work. Let's learn how to toggle our overlays.
Overlays can be accessed with the icon directly to the left of the shading icons in the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport. You can see the Overlays icon in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.17 – Viewport overlays
Clicking on the Overlays icon will toggle all overlays on and off:
Click the Overlays icon to turn off all overlays.Right now, we don't have very many overlays turned on, so this won't make much of a difference. But you will notice that the Text Info in the top-left corner of the 3D Viewport has disappeared. Let's turn the overlays back on and then learn how we can customize the overlays.
Click the Overlays icon again to turn the overlays back on.Tip
Toggling overlays on and off can also be done with the Shift + Alt + Z keyboard shortcut.
Just like the viewport shading options, there is a pop-over menu that we can use to customize the overlays.
Click on the little down arrow to the right of the Overlays icon to open the Viewport Overlays pop-over menu, as shown in the following screenshot:Figure 1.18 – The Viewport Overlays pop-over menu
We can see that there are only a few options turned on. This is because the sculpting preset turns off many of the features that we don't need for the sculpting workflow. But we can turn some of these features back on as needed.
Check the box for Floor in the pop-over menu to turn on the grid floor.We can also turn on colored axis lines to go along with this floor.
Click to turn on the toggles for X and Y next to the Axes label in the pop-over menu.Isn't that neat? We've got a grid floor displayed below the character now. This can help us identify where our character is in relation to the center of the 3D scene, as you can see in the following screenshot:
Figure 1.19 – The grid floor and axes displayed below the character
Some of the most useful overlays are reserved for Sculpt Mode, but at the moment we are viewing this character in Object Mode. Let's change that now.
Click on the drop-down list labeled Object Mode in the top-left corner of the 3D Viewport.Choose Sculpt Mode from the list to switch to Sculpt Mode.Open the Viewport Overlays pop-over menu again.We have a few new options available now, including Fade Inactive Geometry, Mask, and Face Sets.
Check the box for Fade Inactive Geometry in the pop-over menu.Click and drag the slider next to the checkbox to adjust the amount of fade.Note how the eyes, eyebrows, and teeth all fade to gray as you adjust the slider. This overlay can be helpful for easily identifying which object we are currently sculpting on. We will learn about some of the other overlays later in this book, including the Mask overlay in Chapter 3, Sculpting a Simple Character Head with Basic Brushes, and the Face Sets overlay in Chapter 6, Using Advanced Features and Customizing the Sculpting Brushes.
How it works…
Most of the overlays are completely optional, especially for the sculpting workflow.
The Mask and Face Sets options will be very important later in this book, so don't be surprised if we visit this menu frequently to make adjustments to these overlays.
Toggling the overlays off entirely is helpful for looking at our sculptures without the extra visual noise. But some of the overlays provide useful information while we work, so we usually want the overlays on.
Navigating the 3D Viewport
Navigating in 3D space is fundamental to being able to create 3D art. We have to be able to look at our model from multiple angles while we work.
3D navigation can be broken down into three types of movement: orbit, zoom, and pan. We can see gizmos for these types of navigation in the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport:
Figure 1.20 – The navigation gizmo
Clicking on these gizmos will allow us to orbit, zoom, and pan respectively. However, navigation in 3D is very important, and it is best to use a dedicated button on your mouse or graphics tablet for these functions instead of relying on the gizmos. Orbit, pan, and zoom are all accessible from the middle mouse button, plus one of several modifier keys (Alt, Ctrl, and Shift).
In this topic, we will learn how to perform basic 3D Viewport navigation.
Getting ready
We will continue where we left off in the previous recipe using the childHead.blend file. It will be helpful to turn on the X and Y axis overlays, as well as the floor overlay.
Once you've opened the file and enabled these overlays, we'll be ready to try out 3D Viewport navigation.
How to do it…
Now, let's practice the three types of viewport navigation. We'll want to get comfortable navigating in the viewport so that we can look at our objects from multiple vantage points while we sculpt.
First up is orbiting, which will allow us to rotate our view around the sculpture:
Hover your mouse anywhere inside of the 3D Viewport.Press and hold the middle mouse button and drag the mouse to orbit.And that's all there is to it!
Tip
Alternatively, we can click and drag on the colorful part of the navigation gizmo to orbit.
We can also snap the view to align with any of the three-dimensional axes (X, Y, and Z):
Begin orbiting by pressing the middle mouse button and dragging.While dragging with the middle mouse button, hold the Alt modifier key to snap the viewport to the closest angle.Similarly, we can flick the viewport into place for an even faster approach:
Hold the Alt modifier key before pressing the middle mouse button.While holding the Alt modifier key, press the middle mouse button and flick the mouse slightly in the direction of the axis you would like to snap to.Being able to quickly snap our viewport like this is very helpful for checking the proportions of our sculptures.
Tip
Alternatively, we can click on any of the colored indicators of the navigation gizmo to snap to the corresponding axis (X, Y, Z, -X, -Y, and -Z).
Our next type of viewport navigation is zooming, which will allow us to get closer or further away from the sculpture:
Hold the Ctrl modifier key before pressing the middle mouse button.While holding the Ctrl modifier key, press and hold the middle mouse button and drag up and down to zoom in and out.Tip
If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can scroll up and down to zoom in and out. However, we recommend sculpting with a graphics tablet, so you probably won't have access to a scroll wheel while sculpting. Another alternative is to click and drag on the magnifying glass icon in the navigation gizmo.
Lastly, we have panning, which will allow us to slide our view around, kind of like sliding a piece of paper around on a desk:
Hold the Shift modifier key before pressing the middle mouse button.While holding the Shift modifier key, press and hold the middle mouse button and drag to pan.If you ever pan too far away from your sculpture, you can recenter the view from the View menu:
Open the View menu in the top-left corner of the 3D Viewport.Choose Frame Selected to recenter the view on the active object.And that wraps up our navigation controls. Practice these controls, as sculpting is a three-dimensional art form, so we need to be looking at our sculptures from all vantage points while we work. We'll be using these navigation controls very often while sculpting.
There's more…
Orbiting can be performed in one of two modes, Turntable and Trackball.
The default behavior is Turntable. In this mode, the viewport behaves as if the contents of the 3D scene are on a potter's wheel. It can be rotated around, and we can look up and down. This mode will always keep our view orientation aligned in a predictable way, which makes orbiting easy to get used to.
The alternative
