Sculpting the Blender Way: Explore Blender's 3D sculpting workflows and latest features, including Face Sets, Mesh Filters, and the Cloth brush

502 Pages·2022·32.22 MB·english

by  Xury Greer

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
Copy Editor: Safis Editing
Project Coordinator: Manthan Patel
Marketing Co-ordinator: Elizabeth Varghese
Proofreader: Safis Editing
Indexer: Tejal Daruwale Soni
Production Designer: Shyam Sundar Korumili
First published: January 2022
Production reference: 1231221
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham
B3 2PB, UK.
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
1
Exploring Blender's User Interface for Sculpting
Technical requirements   2 Customizing solid shading
Installing Blender   3 mode with the pop-over menu   16
Getting ready   3 Getting ready   17
How to do it…   3 How to do it…   17
How it works…   4 How it works…   20
There's more...   4
Using viewport overlays   20
See also   4
Getting ready   21
Understanding Blender's user How to do it…   21
interface   5 How it works…   24
Getting ready   5
Navigating the 3D Viewport   24
How to do it…   6
Getting ready   25
Expanding and collapsing the How to do it…   25
Toolbar and the Sidebar   9 There's more…   26
Getting ready   9 See also   27
How to do it…   9
Setting up your graphics
There's more…   11
tablet's stylus buttons   27
Exploring the viewport shading Getting ready   28
modes   11 How to do it…   28
Getting ready   11 See also   30
How to do it…   12
How it works…   16
viii Table of Contents
2
Overview of Blender's Sculpting Workflows
Technical requirements   32 How it works…   48
Understanding the components There's more…   48
of a 3D sculpture   33 See also   49
Getting ready   34 Practicing the basics of the
How to do it…   34 Voxel Remesher   49
How it works…   36
Getting ready   50
Pushing polys with the basic How to do it…   52
sculpting mode   36 How it works…   54
Getting ready   36 Using the Voxel Remesher in a
How to do it…   37 low-to-high detail workflow   55
How it works…   41
Getting ready   55
There's more…   42
How to do it…   56
Discovering the limitations of How it works…   59
the basic sculpting mode   42
Exploring the most powerful
Getting ready   43 sculpting
How to do it…   43 mode – multiresolution   61
Creating dynamic topology with Getting ready   61
Dyntopo   45 How to do it…   62
How it works…   65
Getting ready   46
There's more…   66
How to do it…   46
3
Sculpting a Simple Character Head with Basic Brushes
Technical requirements   68 Using masks to add the neck
Creating the large forms of the and ears   74
head with the Grab brush   68 Getting ready   74
Getting ready   69 How to do it…   75
How to do it…   69 How it works…   80
How it works…   73 There's more…   80
There's more…   74
Building up the nose and brow
with the Clay Strips brush   80
Table of Contents ix
Getting ready   81 How it works…   97
How to do it…   81 There's more…   98
How it works…   84 See also   98
Smoothing the lumpy and Adding detail to the ears with
jagged surfaces of the sculpture   84 the Crease brush   98
Getting ready   84 Getting ready   98
How to do it…   84 How to do it…   99
How it works…   87 How it works…   102
Creating a bulbous nose and Creating the mouth with the
cheeks with the Inflate brush   87 Draw Sharp brush   102
Getting ready   88 Getting ready   102
How to do it…   88 How to do it…   102
How it works…   90
Sharpening details with the
There's more…   90
Pinch brush   106
Adding basic eyes and eyelids Getting ready   107
to the character   90 How to do it…   107
Getting ready   91 There's more…   109
How to do it…   91 See also   110
4
How to Make a Base Mesh for a 3D Sculpture
Technical requirements   112 Using the Skin modifier to turn
Creating and transforming wireframe structures into
primitive objects   112 thick skins   129
Getting ready   113 Getting ready   129
How to do it…   113 How to do it…   129
How it works…   119 How it works…   135
There's more…   119 There's more…   135
Creating a base mesh with box Using Metaballs to build
modeling   120 blob-like 3D forms   135
Getting ready   120 Getting ready   136
How to do it…   121 How to do it…   136
How it works…   128 How it works…   140
There's more…   128 See also   141
See also   129