Sculpting

Click Sculpt in the row of tabs at the top of the sidebar, or press Shift+S by default. Shift+S is a toggle: pressed again in the Sculpt tab, it goes back to Retopology. T flips between the Paint and Sculpt tabs, so from Paint it takes you straight across.

Sculpting works on whichever mesh the viewport is showing: the Loaded Mesh, or the Generated Mesh once you have built one. A form you only notice after retopology does not send you back to the start. Switch the viewport between the two first to choose which one your strokes change.

Picking a tool

The sculpt tools are not in the sidebar: while the Sculpt tab is open, the icon toolbar shows the twelve sculpt brushes followed by the Stencil and Stroke Tool toggles. Drag on the model to sculpt; Shift+drag inverts the stroke. See Sculpt Brushes.

The Sculpt sidebar

From top to bottom, the sidebar's sections are:

Section	What it is for
Rebuild Method	The Rebuild and Repaint buttons and the method and detail behind them. Rebuild turns the whole model into one even, closed mesh when sculpting has stretched or crowded its polygons. It sits first because it is the step you come back to between rounds of sculpting.
Subdivision Level	Its title shows the current level. Adds and steps between subdivision levels, and bakes their detail. Levels live on the Generated Mesh.
Brush Settings	The brush image, Rake Brush, Drop Brush and Aligned Brush; the radius, falloff and Intensity sliders; then switches including Build up, Front faces only, Dynamic topology, Per-tool settings and Paint while sculpting. While the Mask tool is selected, the mask tools appear here too.
Brush Shape Dynamics	Opens with Symmetry (X, Y, Z), At origin and Radial, then the brush tip's per-dab variation.
Brush Scattering	Scatters dabs away from the stroke path.
Brush Color Dynamics	Shown only while Paint while sculpting is on: varies the colour each dab paints.
Texture Brushes	The brush's surface texture, dual brush and tip generator, shared with the Paint tab.
Brush Options	Extra brush behaviours, such as Noise.
Pen Settings	Whether and how a pen's pressure, tilt and rotation drive the brush.
Auto-Masking	Holds the brush back automatically at crevices and edges, without painting a mask.
Stencil	The stencil's image and placement. Turn the stencil itself on with its toolbar button.
Stroke Properties	Shown only while the Stroke Tool is on: edits the path the brush sculpts along.

The brush sections below Brush Settings are the same ones the Paint tab uses, with the same values, so a section opened in one tab is open in the other. Pinned below them all are Save Sculpt... and Load Sculpt...: a .vxs file keeps the mesh and everything painted onto its vertices, including the metallic, roughness, emission, bump and normal channels an .obj or .glb would drop. Loading one replaces the loaded mesh.

Sculpt layers have a window of their own: Window → Sculpt Layers.

Undo and redo

Ctrl+Z undoes the last sculpt step and Ctrl+Shift+Z redoes it; Edit → Undo does the same while you are in the Sculpt tab. Sculpting keeps its own history, separate from painting's, and mask edits are undone the same way.

In this section

• Sculpt Brushes — the twelve tools and the controls every one of them uses.
• Symmetry — mirrored and radial strokes.
• Aligned Brush: Wrap & Follow Curve — an alpha fixed to the surface as a pattern.
• Sculpt Layers — keep sculpted detail on layers of its own.
• Dynamic Topology — brushes that add points where they need them.
• Subdivision Levels — sculpt fine detail on a subdivided Generated Mesh and bake it.
• Rebuild & Repaint — even out stretched topology and keep a textured model's colour.
• Sculpt Paths — sculpt along an editable curve with the Stroke Tool.
• Text — emboss, engrave or paint words, or make them a 3D mesh (shared with Painting).
• Paint While Sculpting — one stroke that sculpts and paints.
• Sculpt Masking — protect parts of the model from the brushes.