I wouldn’t call it “illness”. The default ZB UI is cumbersome, convoluted and dated, I agree, but to my experience the UX with a lot of easy mouse gestures to quickly establish masks, polygroups, clipping, cutting and more is a breeze to work with. Lately, Blender’s Sculpt Mode has received so many new tools and functions that have been tucked away in submenus that the UI starts to show similarities with ZB.
But enough about ZB in this Blender Sculpt Mode topic. I just wanted to express that I think Blender’s Sculpt Mode currently feels messy. Development seems to happen chaotically parallel: lots of experimental new tools, a bit of Dyntopo and a bit of Multires, while Undo still sucks. That’s why I’m back in ZB for the time being, while keeping an eye on Sculpt Mode developments.
No date has been mentioned.
But there is nothing concrete about paint modes fusion, currently.
First step announced is to settle new modes in an experimental branch.
Then,
After that initial step, more technical development can happen. This includes things like redesigning the texture projection painting code, refactoring the tool system for tool preset management or building better overlays and snapping for retopology.
That is enough work for resting half of the year.
And the article is terminated with those weird warnings.
It is also important to notice that this design also includes some tasks that require some technical research and innovation, like painting displacement surface details. These tasks have a high risk of taking much longer to develop, but they are not crucial for having a functional version of the asset creation pipeline.
This project also depends on other ongoing development like the asset browser and storage or the upcoming UI workshop. More detailed designs about the final features that involve the asset creation pipeline will be discussed and worked on with those projects.
UI workshops are supposed to happen in September. Blender 3.0 will be released in October, not impacted by UI Workshops.
So, there will probably not exist enough tools working, ready in new modes, before next year.
And reply to feedback that community will deliver on the subject, will probably require another half of a year, to be in good shape to be released in master.
One year of wait is an optimistic estimation of everything going well, with many developers involved.
If something goes wrong, several more months may be necessary.
If something is neglected because many developers are working on other things, that could be extra years that would be necessary.
I just don’t get it. They have a practically finished polypainting system that is more feature-rich and performant than any other painting system Blender has to offer… and they’ll just sit on it for years
That could have been a great 3.0 feature: “look, we have polypaint!”. Nope.
They intend to change the underlying architecture, So it uses the generic attribute system in a custom data layer.
That custom data layer will make it compatible with everything nodes without needing to convert from data type to another…
It doesn’t really make sense, to release it now only to change it again 3 to 6 months later, that will need a new round of testing again. It is inconvenient for artist, but it does make sense …
People seem oblivious to the fact that all the money Blender received since the launch of 2.80 is a tiny fraction of the money Zbrush has made over the last 14 years. Even if they tripled their income it will still take years to find the right developers and at least 8 years to fix all the underlying issues the limit performance. In that same 8 year period though zbrush will advance significantly in the area of performance and computers in general will also advance. What is impossible to do in zbrush today will be possible in Blender in 5 years and much of what is possible in zbrush 5 years from now will still be impossible in Blender 5 years from now.
What can Blender do with its current resources and developers? Improve real-time viewport rendering with eevee and cycles-x, improve wysiwyg exporting to other programs, improve sculpt tools within the confines of the current sculpting performance level, start researching how to improve edit-mode and sculpt mode performance, start LOOKING for more people to hire who can help with performance, make the API situation better for addon developers, work on continuing to improve the UI and add things like asset management and sane material management and basic sculpting/painting brush management. Anything beyond this needs a lot more money and a lot more people and a hell of lot more time.
Just because there’s a new build every night with a bug fix or feature putting smiles on faces and feeling like “fast development” doesn’t mean anything and everything can be done just as fast or easily.
There was one Mac OS release a long time ago that did just this. It was awesome.
Another thing to note is that they want every feature in Blender to play with each other in a fully compatible, high performance fashion. For instance, being able to utilize the full power of Eevee as you sculpt on your model. Adding in the experimental patches now will only make the coding more complex.
It makes sense, so we as users will not have to think at all as to whether A works with B or B is compatible with C or even whether C must come before or after you are done with D (offering more freedom in workflow setup and making the creative process easier).
Does anyone have an issue with Multires + the lookdev mode and vertex colors (used in the material)? I seem to loose the materials in Lookdev mode (whole thing turns super dark) when I go into the Sculpt mode with Multires enabled.
This only happens when the object has multires and vcols in the material.
That has pretty much been the case with FOSS development in general, the best way to minimize seeing such is to make sure every single app. on your desktop is closed source and from a for-profit vendor (that is if you can spare the thousands of dollars you will need to pay annually).
To reduce the messiness of sculpt mode is probably one of the subjects Pablo is talking about here, notice how his feature-creep patches have been coasting to a stop. Other work being done already suggests Blender’s focus is tilting toward things like reducing technical debt and performance.
I wouldn’t know. Anyone who has ever bought ZBrush, even if it was the first release in 1999, has never had to pay for an upgrade. That makes Pixologic a lot more sympathetic to me than let’s say… Autodesk.
Sculpt Mode development seems to be heading that way now, although I think Pablo’s recent development essay is a bit convoluted. Let’s see how the actual Sculpt Mode development works out, and how long it will take. I still think a few more dedicated Sculpt Mode developers assisting Pablo would help progress a lot. I’m glad Joseph Eagar is improving Dyntopo and Multires lately.
This is expected behavior.
Multires levels can not be painted.
As a result, neglected Vertex Colors channel is appearing black, when sculpt level is at a level higher than 0 (unless Sculpt Base Mesh option is enabled).
I don’t know man, most people that use Maya/Max have never actually paid for a license. Most were using an education license for years, then maybe a “certified” license coming from an one legged dude with an eye patch until getting a job in the industry were the employer shouldered the financial part.
And Autodesk made sure (or were sloppy) so that acquiring either one was a simple as buying a pack of cigarettes from an cigarette-machine.
Only recently since the Indie license is out has the difficulty level of acquiring the former two versions of “licenses” become harder, but not too hard for people with an above average intelligence level.
Strip away the formalities and they are pretty equal.
People that advocate against heavy copy protection were right - there is the official, legal way and there is the practical way. People are not as easy to control. AND THAT IS A GOOD THING.
Damn, that comic strip hit so hard. I don’t even…
How?
I am feeling insulted, ashamed, completely naked, publicly humiliated while being completely understood and exposed.
Because that’s me. I am THAT guy.
I am gonna put myself in an corner in fetal position and cry for a while.
I’m adjusting my UI so often that I missed that. 
