Symmetry
Symmetry repeats every stroke on the other side of the model, so you only sculpt one half of a face, a body or a prop and the other half follows. Its controls are the first rows inside the Brush Shape Dynamics section of the sculpt palette: Symmetry with its X, Y and Z boxes, At origin, and Radial.
Mirror planes
Tick X, Y or Z to mirror every stroke across that plane. You can tick several at once: the stroke is then repeated across each plane and each combination of them, so X and Y together give four copies of every dab. While symmetry is on, a faint ring shows where each mirrored brush lands, so you can see before you press whether the two sides line up.
Grab and Rotate respect symmetry too: they capture the mirrored side along with the side you drag, and move both.
A mirrored copy is a true reflection. A brush image stamped on the far side reads mirrored, and a twist or rotation turns the other way, which is what you want for a face or a pair of limbs.
Where the mirror sits: At origin
The mirror planes have to pass through some point. At origin picks which one:
| At origin | The mirror planes pass through… |
|---|---|
| Off (the default) | The middle of the model's bounding box. Use this for scans and imports that are not centred on the world origin — most of them. |
| On | The world origin. Use this for a model that was built around the origin. |
At origin is greyed out until a mirror axis or radial symmetry is on. The same centre is used by radial symmetry.
If the mirrored ring lands visibly off the matching feature, the bounding box is not centred on the model's middle. If the model was built around the world origin, try At origin.
Radial symmetry
Radial repeats every stroke a number of times, turned evenly about an axis through the symmetry centre — for a wheel, a flower, a crown or anything else built from identical segments round a middle.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Radial slider | How many copies, from 1 to 32. At 1 it reads Off; above that it shows the count, e.g. 6-fold. The default is 1 (off). |
| Axis (X / Y / Z) | The axis the radial copies turn about. The default is Y. Greyed out while Radial is off. |
Radial symmetry combines with the X / Y / Z mirrors: each radial copy is mirrored as well, so a 6-fold pattern with a mirror gives segments that are symmetric within themselves.
Symmetry in Paint mode
The Paint palette has the same Symmetry X / Y / Z boxes and the same Radial row at the top of its own Brush Shape Dynamics section. They are the same setting, not a copy: ticking X in one tab ticks it in the other. Vertex painting and texture painting repeat a stroke through the same set of mirrored and radial copies as sculpting does. The At origin box is only in the sculpt palette.