How do I use the Sculpting tool effectively in Aspire, including custom component brushes and the Preserve Transparency option?

Overview

The Sculpting tool is Aspire's interactive 3D editing system, the closest thing it has to digital clay. You paint changes directly on the 3D model with brush strokes in the 3D view, using a mouse or a pen tablet. It is the main tool for organic refinement, fixing artifacts, blending component transitions, adding texture detail and creating freeform shapes that are hard to build from vectors alone.

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Entering Sculpting Mode

1. Select the component(s) you want to sculpt in the Component Tree. You can also select a bitmap, which is overlaid on the sculpted model as a guide (useful when sculpting from a photo).
2. Click the Sculpting icon on the Modeling tab.
3. If you selected several components or a group, Aspire has to Bake them into a single component first. Save a safe copy before doing this.
4. The 3D view becomes the sculpting canvas. The red circle is the brush.

Important: sculpting edits the selected component. The other components can be shown for context (see Show Visible Model below) but only the selected one changes.

Recommended setup: if your model uses several Levels, use Create Component from Visible Model to get a snapshot of the composite without destroying your structure, then sculpt the snapshot while the originals stay intact. Use Tile Windows (View menu, or the Page Up and Page Down keys) to see the 2D and 3D views side by side.

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The Five Sculpting Tools

Pick a tool from the form or press its number key, 1 to 5.

1. Smooth

Averages the high and low areas under the cursor as you move back and forth.

• Best for blending seams where two components meet after baking, removing sharp edges and spikes, softening harsh edges on imported models, and cleaning up after aggressive Deposit or Remove work.
• Smooth Components (global, on the whole component) and the Smooth sculpting tool (a local brush) are different tools: use Smooth Components for overall softening and the Smooth tool for targeted blending. See the entry on Smooth Components.

2. Smudge

Drags material like smudging clay with your thumb. Going from high to low pulls the higher material into the lower area, and vice versa.

• Best for flowing transitions, pulling features into each other, and directional streaks such as hair, fur and feathers.
• Tip for jagged component edges: with Preserve Transparency unticked, smudge the edge out into the flat background to soften it. Then use Clear Outside with a smoothed vector to restore a clean edge.

3. Deposit

Adds material under the cursor, raising the height. Works with a custom brush.

• Best for building up cheekbones and ridges, raising detail and filling depressions. For subtle changes use low strength and several gentle passes instead of one heavy stroke.

4. Remove

Removes material under the cursor, lowering the height. Works with a custom brush.

• Best for deepening eye sockets, carving channels and lowering areas.

5. Undo Brush

Gradually returns already-sculpted areas toward their original state. Paint over a mistake to undo just that region.

• Shift + Undo Brush erases the part of the model under the cursor completely, which is useful for tidying the edge of a shape or deleting parts of a component.
• Ctrl + Z undoes the last move without using the Undo Brush.

There is no Flatten brush. To flatten spikes or fill holes, use Smooth with the Mode set to Lower or Raise (see Mode below).

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Brush Controls

• Diameter: the size of the red cursor. Change it with the slider or the mouse wheel while sculpting. Hold Ctrl while scrolling for smaller steps.
• Strength: how much effect the tool has as you move over the model. Hold Shift while scrolling the wheel to change it. Low strength builds up gradually, so you can refine with several passes.
• Smoothness: how smoothly the tool changes the model. Higher is a gentler transition, lower is jagged and can distort the surface.
• Merge: controls whether one stroke is merged with the previous strokes or added onto them.
• Mode: Normal averages high and low points. Raise keeps the highest points when smoothing or smudging, so material is only added (good for filling holes). Lower keeps the lowest points, so material is only removed (good for eliminating spikes, for example on a scanned STL).
• Presets: choose a preset from the drop-down to restore the tool settings stored in it. Click Add to save the current settings as a new preset (you are asked for a name, and asked to confirm before overwriting a preset of the same name for the same tool). Click Remove to delete the displayed preset. Presets for jobs such as fine detail, edge blending and heavy deposit save a lot of time.

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Preserve Transparency

This is on by default. It masks the sculpting so it only applies inside the existing boundary of the component. This stops the edges blending into the background (the lighter flat plane around the component).

Untick it when you need to extend a component past its original edge or smooth the edges into the background. Press 0 while sculpting to toggle it.

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View Controls While Sculpting

The 3D view controls change while sculpting, because the left mouse button sculpts:

• Pan: hold the middle mouse button and drag.
• Zoom: hold Alt and scroll the mouse wheel.
• Tilt and rotate: drag with the right mouse button.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

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Show Visible Model (F)

Makes the other components in the composite model visible in the 3D view while you sculpt. The sculpting tools still only apply to the selected component.

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Keep, Discard, OK and Cancel

• Keep: saves the changes so far and lets you keep sculpting. Click it often as you make progress.
• Discard: throws away everything since the last Keep. If you have not clicked Keep in this session, it discards everything. A warning appears, which you can bypass by holding Shift.
• OK: accepts all the changes and exits, updating the Component Tree.
• Cancel: exits and discards ALL changes from the session, even ones you kept. To keep most of your work, click Discard first, then OK. It also has a warning that Shift bypasses.

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Custom Component Brushes

Instead of the round brush, you can use a model as the brush in Deposit or Remove mode. The brush leaves an impression that simulates pushing the model through the surface.

Creating a custom brush:

1. Build or import the component you want as a brush (a leaf, a scale, a petal, a veining pattern).
2. Right-click it in the Component Tree and choose Create sculpting brush. Aspire optimizes it and puts it in the standard sculpting brushes location.

Any .3dclip, .v3m or bitmap can be used, but a model made specifically as a brush works best.

Using a custom brush:

1. Click Load Brush and choose the model or bitmap.
2. In Deposit mode the brush stamps its shape into the model. In Remove mode it carves its negative shape.
3. Angle sets the brush rotation (hold the r key and scroll the wheel to adjust it). If Dynamic Rotation is ticked, the brush rotates to follow the direction of your stroke, which suits flowing organic patterns, and a small arrow in the 3D view shows its current rotation.

For stamping recipes (scales, bricks, fur, knurling), see the entry on the Sculpting tool's Custom Brush.

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Overlay Image

If a bitmap was selected when you opened the tool, it is overlaid on the model. The Overlay image opacity slider sets how translucent it is, and the O key toggles it on and off. This lets you sculpt while referencing the original artwork, which is helpful for portraits.

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Common Workflow Applications

• After Two Rail Sweep frames: smooth sharp corners and blend profile transitions.
• After baking several clipart components: smooth the height transitions where they overlap.
• Portrait refinement: build up cheekbones with Deposit, deepen eye sockets with Remove, blend everything with Smooth.
• Fixing imported STL artifacts: remove spikes with Smooth in Lower mode, and fill holes with Smooth in Raise mode.
• Blending a seam between two components: bake them (keep safe copies), then use Smooth with a large brush, low strength and several passes along the seam.
• Weathering or aging: Deposit at low strength with varied brush sizes for organic surface irregularity.
• Edge cleanup: Undo Brush with Shift and Preserve Transparency off to tidy component edges into the surrounding model.
• Tips: a small brush with low strength and several passes suits fine detail, a pen tablet gives finer control than a mouse, and Undo Brush at low strength pulls back over-sculpted areas.

For portrait and animal figure workflows, see the entries on creating a 3D portrait and on modeling an animal figure.