I was mucking around with modelling clay with my kids and we were using those half moulds that come in different shapes like faces or animals. This gave me an idea and I thought about the possibility of using geometry brushes to suck shapes out from the mesh.
These 3D brushes could be as simple as a cube, a bottle or even a nose shape that you could use to suck the same shape out from your sculpture. The mesh would gradually fill the 3D brush until it filled the brush exactly.
Hmm, can’t you simulate that with a boolean mesh modifier?
Hello,
I like the idea you are presenting, but you might get something like this already from setting up an image with alpha in the gimp, then use it as a texture brush in sculpt mode.
I guess it would be limited to how detailed your alpha brush was made.
It would be cool to actually be able to set up a mold from another reusable mesh.
mpan3 - You are right, a boolean operation could do this but the whole point of sculpt mode for me is the organic feel. A boolean operation is too cold.
craigomatic - I did think about the possibility of using texture brushes. Which are great btw. However, a 3D mould if it was implemented the way I imagine would allow for concave shapes or hollows that double back on themselves which wouldn’t be possible with just texture maps. Having said that I don’t have any idea if it would be easy or difficult to implement.
You can do something like that using the proportional editing tool. Create your stamp object, Ctrl J it to the model you want to sculpt, then in the edit mode, select your stamp object (hover over it and L key to select connected vertices) and activate the proportional editing mode O key. Play with the fall-off modes and increase or decrease the magnet influence area by scrolling the middle mouse button. Toggle the magnet on or off by pressing the O key if you want to move the stamp object without affecting the base mesh.
the retopo feature is what you need. make a plane, and put suzanne on it, so her face is sticking through the top ( so it looks like a plaque ) then add a grid above it, go into edit mode, hit ‘retopo’ then ‘retopo all’ and the grid will be ‘vacuformed’ around the model. just like a vacuform machine.
It sounds similar to the Mesh brush tool that was made a while back (don’t know if it was for the sculpt mode though.
Alltaken