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Sculpt your first prop

Beginner 12 min sculpt

Block out a rock in Sculpt with the core brushes, then hand it to the rest of the 3D pipeline. No prior sculpting experience needed.

What you'll learn#

You will block out a simple prop in Sculpt, refine its shape with the main brushes, and leave it ready for the next stage. This is step one of the aukimi 3D pipeline: Sculpt, then Retopo, then Pigment, then Render or Engine.

Before you start#

  • Sculpt is a backed module. Back it, or a global tier, to open it. Inkwell, Vectra and PDF Studio are the three modules that are free.
  • It runs on WebGL everywhere, and switches to WebGPU where the browser exposes it. Safari and iOS stay on WebGL and work. The choice is in the header, under Render Engine.
  • Nothing else is required. You will start from a primitive, not from an imported file.
  • A graphics tablet helps but is optional. Everything below works with a mouse.

Steps#

  1. Open Sculpt from the module sidebar. The viewport takes the centre of the screen, with the sculpting tools on one side and the display options on the other.

  2. Start from a primitive. A sphere is the easiest base for an organic shape like a rock.

  3. Open the Matcap Library and pick a neutral matcap such as Clay. A matcap is a preview material: it makes the surface easier to read while you sculpt and changes nothing about the geometry.

  4. Select the Clay Buildup brush from Sculpting Tools and push out the large masses first. Work on the silhouette before any detail, and keep rotating the view so the shape reads from every angle.

  5. Switch to Move to drag whole regions around. Move shifts the surface instead of adding to it, which is how you get an irregular, non-spherical outline.

  6. Flatten a few faces with Trim or Trim Planar. Alternating flat planes and rounded masses is what separates a rock from a lumpy ball.

    Tip: lower the brush size for the last passes. Large brushes set the shape, small brushes sell the material.

  7. Cut the sharp creases with Dam Standard. Keep them few and deliberate. Every crease you add here is one the next stages have to carry.

  8. Protect a region before refining it: Ctrl+click on the mesh paints the mask, then invert with Invert Mask so your brush only affects the rest. Use Clear Mask when you are done.

    Warning: a mask stays active until you clear it. If a brush suddenly seems to do nothing, check whether the area is still masked.

  9. Smooth the transitions with Polish, then step back and check the silhouette one last time.

  10. Save your work. Local auto-save keeps your session, and Save to Cloud stores the project on your account so it follows you to another machine.

    Warning: if you started from a demo scene rather than your own project, the demo is not saved. Export or save to your own project before you leave the module.

Result#

You have a sculpted prop with a readable silhouette, a mix of flat and rounded surfaces, and a few intentional creases. It is dense geometry, which is exactly what a sculpt should be at this stage.

That density is also why you cannot use it in a game as is. The next tutorial rebuilds a clean, light topology on top of this shape.

Going further#

  • Next in the pipeline: rebuild clean topology with Retopo.
  • Try the same steps on a different base primitive, or use metaballs to block out a more complex form before you start sculpting.
  • Explore Mesh Operations for booleans, decimation and extraction once you are comfortable with the brushes.