In master, Pablo has disconnected area of effect of brush from Normal radius by adding a slider named Area Radius.
I don’t understand what this does, could you please clear it up ? Area radius sounds like it could be the same as brush radius, and that’s obviously not what it is so I’m a bit lost here.
I agree that the recent flood of options can be confusing, especially since the options are tucked away as a range of checkboxes in a section you need to unfold.
Just wondering: does anyone use the new Clay Thumb brush yet?
The new Surface Smooth brush algorithm is ready for Master:
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Sorry. I badly, expressed myself.
Of course, there is an effect of brush under whole area under radius if geometry is supposed to be affected according to sculpt plane.
Tooltip is more explicit by talking about sampling center.
If you use a big radius, a big normal radius, to treat a messy area of mesh with lots of peaks, mounts and valleys.
If area radius is big, you will flatten initial relief of the whole area but also keep it perceptible.
If area radius is small, you will obtain a result more contrasted and it will be easier to change several mounts into a unique plateau.
So, the idea behind using a different disconnected Area Radius is to be able to use it with a value at the opposite side of spectrum.
Thanks for the effort but I’ll have to see it in action, it seems rather complicated.
Haven’t used it much yet personally, but I did try it just now on a sculpt and it is honestly pretty all right. At larger brush sizes it is pretty decent at cleaning up your sculpt. It is also good when working from two sides that connect into an angle like a knee or an elbow where you can build up volume to create the bending. It is also good at carving out decent looking curves on your mesh like the curve around the spine.
It is not a fantastic brush, but certainly useable.
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Got some big news about MultiRes. For one, the MultiRes task got updated with multiple new tasks that are going to get addressed. The list is down below. Also, we’re finally getting automatic Apply Base! 
Memory/performance optimization
Enable optimal display by default in subsurf and multires modifiers
Don't allow editing Quality after subdivision is done
Don't allow editing simple/catmull-clark and quality after subdivision is done
Remove simple mode, and replace with a way to apply simple subdivision as an operation (modifying multires or a base mesh)
Fix undo bugs for switching between multires levels
Re-enable editing of intermediate sculpt levels
Always auto apply base when sculpting, instead of having a button for it
Investigate if propagation is need for edits in edit mode
Investigate how to support "Apply Base" for meshes with shapekeys
Brecht also replied back to my feedback post regarding MultiRes. Some stuff he agreed with and some stuff he brought up interesting counter-points.
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Nice work! 
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Thanks, but this was a team effort! Now the devs have a pretty solid plan for MultiRes. The modifier is going to feel absolutely amazing once they are done with all the tasks. 
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i also posted on devtalk and brecht seems to get the picture. i am bit baffled that pablo doesn’t really know that workflow - years ago, without all those fancy remeshing options, there was only sculpting on a base mesh with all the stretching of polygons involved. without a non-smooth sub-d you have to constantly reshape the silhouette.
He isn’t the one heading the development of MultiRes to a functioning state, so it is a bit understandable that he doesn’t know of that workflow. The subdiv algorithms have been broken for a long time, so that type of workflow is not really working anymore since a long time back. Heck, when I started using Blender in 2.80 Alpha I just didn’t see the point in a Simple subdivision when stuff weren’t working at all.
Anyway, Sergey has already started the work on allowing the mixing of Catmull-Clark and Simple subdivisions every time you subdivide, so we are getting that workflow back to a functioning state:
https://developer.blender.org/rB885caa4535850f655454edf746c72ab87f5dcc21
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In his comment, he first proposed to replace modes by 2 buttons. A “subdivide” one that would create a Catmull-Clark subdivision level and a “subdivide simple” one that would create a simple subdivision level.
His second proposal about removing it and dealing with other modifiers seems complicated but he is probably anticipating what will become modifier nodes.
It looks to me that he understood the main idea.
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Anyone knows will 2.83 finally gets remesh modifier like was in summer 2019 Pablo’s branch, this is really really useful for creating pre-sculpt meshes and even some type quick hard surface meshes.
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The dev of it wants to… But there’s a war happening to pass the review wall…
https://developer.blender.org/D4960
Scroll down and enjoy… 
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The two main points from Brecht
- It is currently a bit technical and artists might it difficult to use (which would guarantee a wall of complaints here on BA).
- The implementation is not future-proof (ie. new functionality in this area like OpenVDB volumes could require a full redesign). The path of least resistance was taken which is oftentimes not the best one from a development perspective.
I wouldn’t say the requests are unreasonable, because the core team has clear interest in Blender having this.
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How do you convert the Face Sets to Face Maps, Vertex Groups and Material slots?
Why are Face Sets and Face Maps two separate things?
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If devs plan to invent something new similar to this then i hope it is NOT node based only and can act as modifier. I am GUI user and prefer to avoid node fuzzing much as possible.
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