Sculpt Mode has come a long way through the years. Pablo added some pleasant goodness, and Joe is doing a nice job too. The things I yearn for the most are:
Inclusion in the main Blender of all features that remain stuck in the Sculpt Dev builds, such as the real-time mask operations (blur etc.) and the Bend mode in the Pose tool.
Some much-needed changes in the UI / UX in order to speed up sculpting workflow. For example, a number of important features are hidden in submenus and can not be assigned to a keyboard shortcut or Quick Favorites, such as Front Faces Only. I would love a Sculpt Mode quick menu you can ideally customize yourself, not having to rely on add-on solutions that need to remain updated with every major new Blender version.
A better auto-retopologizer than Quadriflow. ZBrush, 3D-Coat, 3ds Max and Maya all have a great auto-retopo function. Blender should not stay behind.
One example Blender blockout and how much time consuming because switching thousand times between sculpt mode and object mode for adding primitives, deforming with sculpt mode, reposition and rotate again in object mode, also for each new pirmitive must subdivide to be usable in sculpt mode.
Lot of not necessary steps that would be avoided with IMM or quick add subdivided primitives in sculpt mode in two clicks like Zbrush or 3D coat, and be able to quick select different objects without needing to switch to object mode.
Also missing transform tool directly in sculpting mode like Zbrush one for example, move , rotate, scale in sculpt mode, while keeping mirror working when it’s mirrored object, so no need to switch to object mode eash time.
Those are workflow improvments that would make sculpting way better specially for people that are already at ease with other sculpting apps.
All areas can suffer of an inconstancy of manpower.
A developer can work during years on blender and decide to opt for a change in his life and quit.
Most of time, they don’t completely quit but are becoming a lot less active.
And that is a lot of experience that is lacking.
It is not a deliberate choice to have one to have one guy working on a module.
It is just that resources of BF are not unlimited.
Deliberate choice from Ton was to push guy working on sculpt mode to also work on texture painting.
And currently, we ended-up with SVC and project of new paint mode.
The reason why sculpting development does not seem to progress is mainly because vision of future texture painting progressed.
There were lots of questions about SVC experimented by Pablo and at same time, new Geometry nodes attributes abilities. Now, devs know where they want to go for that part.
Transform tools are present in sculpt mode. But you have to rely on masks and face sets to isolate mesh parts.
Everybody agrees that an IMM brush would be welcomed. But multi-object editing is a different task.
In current state of sculpt mode limited to active object, an IMM would not add other objects but other mesh parts to one object.
Maybe, it is necessary to begin to add sculpt layers,first.
I’m sure Ton wanted to have a unified mode with paint and sculpt in the same module, before continuing to develop the rest: new tools, layers of paint and sculpt
Well. I am talking about a period that started since Psy-Fi was in charge to unify brushes through modes in 2.7x series.
At start of 2.8x, discussion was about unifying falloff.
At that time, sculpt mode only had Sphere falloff and texture mode only Projected one.
I remember that devs wanted to have only Sphere falloff and abandon Projected one; while users wanted to have both.
So, Campbell started to allow Projected falloff in sculpt mode, first, in 2.80. And years later, Jeroen did 3d texture brush that is still only available as experimental feature, in master.
But there was no intention to merge modes before Pablo’s arrival.
Pablo did the unification of symmetry in all modes.
He was frustrated by absence of transform and colouring tools in sculpt mode. So, he added them.
And, then, the idea of getting rid of modes became a trend of wishes for blender future.
Possibility was mentioned about Asset Creation Pipeline blog article from Pablo.
But before Pablo’s experiments, users were thinking that would be a big deal to get rid of modes.
Nowadays, it became a recurrent request.
That does not change the fact, that is really an enormous task with huge implications.
A unique mode, with all tools present, means that UI will not be able to display them all, and most of them will be hidden in submenus of menus or dropdown lists.
It means that display popover would be crowded, too.
It means a necessary customization offered to user, and examples/templates of mode customization by default.
Future merge of paint modes, into a unique one, is a first step, in that direction. But, just that, is announced as a project of several years.
I’d love to believe that’s the case, but after watching Sculpt mode develop since 2.49b (that’s like 2009~2010), maybe aside from Dyntopo, a faster/more practical voxel Remesher and the masking/facesets tools it feels like the development of Sculpt Mode has always been the least cared for among all modules, maybe losing the title only to Video Editing.
And I really wish BF didn’t try to reinvent the wheel with Sculpt Mode. It always feels like the new shiny way of doing stuff is being implemented and we never have time to get the basics well done and solidified.
Are the Sculpt-Dev builds still the ones to use for the latest Sculpt Mode advancements, or are new Sculpt Mode features added directly to the Master builds lately?
Last time I used the Sculpt-Dev builds, around half a year ago or so, they could be frustratingly unstable, causing unexpected crashes every now and then.
Manpower increased a lot since 2.8 expansion. But 2.8 design was an expansion of features.
New devs are absorbed by development of new modules.
Before 2.8, there was no Grease Pencil Object, no EEVEE, no Alembic/USD support, no UDIM, no Volume Object, no Asset Browser, no VR support, no Geometry Nodes.
So, the feeling to be neglected for new stuff is the same for all anterior modules.
The last addition, that is dragging developers attention, is new Hair Curves.
Next will probably be simulation nodes, viewport compositor.
But expansion should stop there. And era of solidification should come.
In fact, it already started in multiple areas with 3.x series. Cycles X is an example.
Library Overrides are becoming more solid at each 3.x release.
Grease Pencil keyframes are visible in Dopesheet mode.
GN are supporting named attributes since 3.2.
Joe kept the branch up-to-date with master evolution.
He did not add significant new feature, except roll brush experiments in May.
But in 6 months, he fixed a lot of bugs.
Joe will still use the branch for experiments.
But he principally worked on delivering SVC for 3.2 and bugfixing during past months.
This morning, he fixed a crash about cloth filter.
Yet he seems to be working on a piece of software solely focused around retopo.
Not saying the main idea of unification is not something worth exploring, but there’s a reason for different parts of a pipeline using different softwares altogether in most production cases. There’s a level of complexity and specialized needs that can’t be generalized. I have yet to see a working concept to prove me otherwise.
Retopo mode seems to be another victim here - " Although I did get a Retopology Mode implemented (D14035) with its own set of tools, visualization settings, and overlays, Campbell decided that adding another specific mode might not be the best approach, and that we should wait for a more generalized submode implementation."
As for the speed of development - I guess it’s a bit of a mix between (at times) aimless decision making and the lack of personnel. Blender is trying to cover more areas than any other package out there. I’m sure the expectation was that opensource development will take off and suck in coders from all across the globe, in reality I think most coders have existential needs that can’t be covered by their devotion to a piece of software.
Well no, that was Ton’s point. Not only do you need to find a coder who has knowledge of that particular area but you’d want one who was also familiar with Blenders code base. Otherwise it’s going to take some time for them to come up to speed.
Exactly, just look at what works well in Zbrush or 3D coat, and try implementing same workflow.
Can invent new things, but first make a fast intuitive sculpting workflow with usefull brush and features.
We don’t have to copy their usability, actually we don’t have to copy anything from them for that matter, just improve some of Blender tools to more performant standards and just be inspired by some of the tools most used by both those other apps. No need to copy their usability, specially if they suck.
That being said the poor usability of Zbrush is waaaaay overblown. I’ve been using Blender for like 13 years and Zbrush for 2 and after the initial week or so you get used to it really quick (unless you are stubborn and don’t want to learn to customize shortcuts and create custom menus). What you get from taking some days really learning the app REALLY pays off. I really wish my obsession with Blender being my “baby” software hadn’t kept me away from alternatives for so many years.
Official Blender devs are literally restricted from looking at and/or copying commercial software. If you want them to implement something then you need to produce images/diagrams that don’t use that software and preferably are in Blender terms/visuals.
