Live Smooth Mesh in Sculpt Room with Move Brush?

[Henry Townshend]

Hi again!

I am having trouble using the new Live Smooth Function in Sculpt Room. I would have expected for the created mesh in modeling room to be movable with the Move Brush in Sculpt Room, so a user can have control over the low poly cage also there.

Is this something not intended? Should a user stay inside Modeling Room for such operations? Just using the regular Modeling/Retopo Brush there?

I am asking cause this is how I am used to work in ZBrush and Blender -> Model a low poly object, add subdiv, and then move the vertices with a move brush in Sculpt Mode to place them further in space. It merges modeling and Sculpting sort of.

When I try this in 3D Coat Sculpt Room, the Live Smooth Mesh gets seemingly triangulated on brush stroke, and shrinks down until it is very thin.

I would be curious if this is expected behaviour. Please see vid:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2j9i7s8ysq69nksbvydxr/2025-09-04-00-48-11.mp4?rlkey=fiaot9njp5kolxhue35twtty6&dl=0

Thanks for Live Smooth btw! Maybe it is just a matter of having to stay in Modeling Room, but I would be curious why the mesh sort of breaks when in Sculpt Room. I feel at least there might should be a warning that the mesh is not recommended to be modified in Sculpt Room.

It seems undo is also not working properly with Live Smooth. Strange things happen on undo for me when using undo on a Live Smooth Mesh in Sculpt Room.

Edited September 3, 2025 by Henry Townshend
typos

[AbnRanger]

9 hours ago, Henry Townshend said:

Hi again!

I am having trouble using the new Live Smooth Function in Sculpt Room. I would have expected for the created mesh in modeling room to be movable with the Move Brush in Sculpt Room, so a user can have control over the low poly cage also there.

Is this something not intended? Should a user stay inside Modeling Room for such operations? Just using the regular Modeling/Retopo Brush there?

I am asking cause this is how I am used to work in ZBrush and Blender -> Model a low poly object, add subdiv, and then move the vertices with a move brush in Sculpt Mode to place them further in space. It merges modeling and Sculpting sort of.

When I try this in 3D Coat Sculpt Room, the Live Smooth Mesh gets seemingly triangulated on brush stroke, and shrinks down until it is very thin.

I would be curious if this is expected behaviour. Please see vid:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2j9i7s8ysq69nksbvydxr/2025-09-04-00-48-11.mp4?rlkey=fiaot9njp5kolxhue35twtty6&dl=0

Thanks for Live Smooth btw! Maybe it is just a matter of having to stay in Modeling Room, but I would be curious why the mesh sort of breaks when in Sculpt Room. I feel at least there might should be a warning that the mesh is not recommended to be modified in Sculpt Room.

It seems undo is also not working properly with Live Smooth. Strange things happen on undo for me when using undo on a Live Smooth Mesh in Sculpt Room.

Maybe I am missing something, but from what I saw, it seems like a slight mis-application of the LIVE SMOOTH toolset. It wasn't designed to have Sculpt mesh changes drive changes to the Modeling/Retopo meshes, but the other way around, instead. What do I mean by that? You have a feature in the Sculpt Room to make RETOPO MESHES conform to changes in the Sculpt Workspace. That is called CONFORM RETOPO MESH, and you can check/uncheck it in the Toolbar (just above the viewport) in the Sculpt Workspace. It is sort of the reverse of Live Smooth. When you are working with LIVE SMOOTH, the concept is to make changes to the MODELING/RETOPO meshes and you can see the changes applied in the subdivided (yes triangles) LIVE SMOOTH/SCULPT mesh. Treat the Sculpt mesh, in this scenario, as just a preview of the Subdivided Modeling mesh and nothing more.

If you are done making changes to/manipulating the low poly Modeling mesh, and want to switch to making changes to the Sculpt Mesh (as in the video you recorded), go to the MESH menu in the Modeling room > click UNLINK SCULPT MESH. That breaks the link between the low poly mesh and the high poly mesh, but leaves both intact in their respective workspaces. Next, check CONFORM RETOPO MESH in the toolbar, and proceed to make your sculpting edits. 

[SreckoM]

Yeah Live Smooth is just for preview purposes, of how polygon model would look like if subdivided. It is a workaround cause there is no way to fast preview subd mesh but to subdivided it and than Undo. 

[Henry Townshend]

Thanks guys for the replies! And thanks much@AbnRanger for the thorough explanation! Sort of confirms my suspicion.

It is good to know. I was assuming it is synced both ways. But once you know it, it's all good. Using the "Brush" Brush : ) in Modeling/Retopo Room gives about the same functionality as it would using the Move brush in Sculpt Room. So that's great. Even tho a bit sad, as the usual Sculpt Room Move Brush params are not available, like Falloff or Move Infinite.

Maybe a warning would be great for users who come from Zmodeler or Blender to know that they will actually harm the Mesh by approaching it this way. Or maybe better, could disable the ability to use any Sculpt Brush on the generated Sculpt Object to begin with, as long as it is still linked.

I would have two remaining questions:

• Is there a "Crease Edge" functionality in Modeling Room? So a Live smooth Mesh could have intact sharp edges where a user desires?
• Is there a means to "Solidify" a Plane? It seems Live Smooth does not work with Planes. So a user seemingly can not ShrinkWrap (Auto Snap in 3D Coat) without the meshes verts completely being projected onto the underlying Sculpt Mesh.

Edited September 4, 2025 by Henry Townshend
correct meaning

[SreckoM]

I think if you mark it as Sharp Edges it should crease it.

 

[Henry Townshend]

Question: Why can't I Live Smooth single sided geo, but can Smooth(CC) it? Should this not theoretically be the same?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e5w5mzvstybp1v65o6i1u/2025-09-05-15-31-45.mp4?rlkey=7ap42ral2hpfgm0b8jr0nit6p&dl=0

And to ask again: Is there there no "dynamic thickness"? Like solidify? 

Also @SreckoM: Awesome! Creasing works. thx!

Edited September 5, 2025 by Henry Townshend
make clearer, typo

[MJonathan]

I've requested a real SubD workflow in the modeling room next steps thread.

Live smooth is good in some specific situations.

[SreckoM]

On 9/5/2025 at 3:35 PM, Henry Townshend said:

Question: Why can't I Live Smooth single sided geo, but can Smooth(CC) it? Should this not theoretically be the same?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e5w5mzvstybp1v65o6i1u/2025-09-05-15-31-45.mp4?rlkey=7ap42ral2hpfgm0b8jr0nit6p&dl=0

And to ask again: Is there there no "dynamic thickness"? Like solidify? 

Also @SreckoM: Awesome! Creasing works. thx!

Live Smooth is voxelizing the mesh, and voxel does not work with single sided meshes, has to have thickness. Subdividing is just subdiving of polygonal mesh. 

Dynamic you mean procedural? There is thickness in Retopo room, named Shell. Not sure why it is not in Modeling too. I am having hard time understanding why Modeling is separated and things like this are happening, making more confusion than necessary but ...  

[Henry Townshend]

2 hours ago, SreckoM said:

Live Smooth is voxelizing the mesh, and voxel does not work with single sided meshes, has to have thickness. Subdividing is just subdiving of polygonal mesh. 

Dynamic you mean procedural? There is thickness in Retopo room, named Shell. Not sure why it is not in Modeling too. I am having hard time understanding why Modeling is separated and things like this are happening, making more confusion than necessary but ...  

Thanks again for the tip! Makes sense that Flat Planes do not work with Voxels. Seemed to me tho that Live smooth uses Surface, judging at least from the layer icon in Sculpt Room.

I was referring to what is called in ZBrush "Dynamic Thickness", which lets you temporarily add thickness to a mesh, like the Solidify modifier in Blender.

Edited September 8, 2025 by Henry Townshend
correction

[Henry Townshend]

To give some examples of what I mean by this, here are two videos. 

1. Moving a low poly cage with Sculpt Move Brush, that drives a one sided plane that has dynamic subdivisions on it

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0lwtv4k5f6mripb6w86lw/2025-09-10-16-52-23.mp4?rlkey=wfga5mfxs3ihtoxsfrbb0elpn&dl=0

2. Adding to that, dynamic thickness, aka "Solidify" in Blender.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ym94yg0ga2hdxehg5tovj/2025-09-10-16-53-37.mp4?rlkey=y7qormef6jceki30m4gh6f2p4&dl=0

Live Smoothing is good. But it is not a substitute for this workflow. Most things I love skipping topology altogether, as I very much enjoy building things the 3D Coat way, even for hard surface stuff, 3D Coat is great in giving one this inherent clay like imperfection from the get go, that I love very much, and can be rather difficult to get in after the fact with relying on geo only throughout the process (which is the reason why many low poly modeled objects go thru high poly and back, to give it live and geasture)

However, often times for base objects, especially with thin objects, which 3D Coat really struggles with either with Voxel and with Surface Mode, it is great to have something that offers this amount of control in the initial stages. Clothing and other accessories are a good example.

You are not limited to just move brush either. Can use Inflate and such very effectively as well.

Currently, non of this is possible in 3D Coat. I thought it would be the case with Live smooth. Sadly it is not the same. I am not trying to bash, I am just objectively trying to compare the offered workflows. Most users are already aware. But I feel Live smooth should have worked this way to make a difference. Just having a preview of your high poly is not enough imho from a workflow perspective. The fact that the low poly mesh is not usable in Sculpt Room, kind of negates the whole benefit.

Which again, 3D Coat, imo, would not even need, as it has its very own, unique workflow strength. But since the can got all opened now, with Modeling Room and things implemented, I think this feedback is not off to give.

Now I know that you can bring a low poly mesh into retopo room and use that as lowest multi res level, and then can turn on Conform Retopo. But it is really not the same, as you are basically working the other way around: Having the high res influence the low res, while it would be more efficient vice versa. Also, there is no dynamic CC smooth in Sculpt Room, only conversion to Surface or Voxels, with resampling, which does not smooth the form in the same way, but leaves the low poly edges intact.

With Multi Res it kinda works! However, each step in the process lets you manipulate only current vertex count. You can not manipulate the lower version and simultaneously see how it affects the higher. It makes controlling the mesh more difficult. And again, it does not work with flat geo as you can see, which is a hindrance, cause you can not use surface snapping, nor deform the verts reliably when something has thickness already applied.

When using Multi Res and working at higher levels, it works, but you are then not working on lower levels, meaning you push/pull more verts around:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mbdy2zdo07grahvbky1v4/2025-09-10-17-37-45.mp4?rlkey=p3wwe7twheqijsh239jvdye2b&dl=0

And then you can see, when one manipulates the low poly, the edges start to fringe apart:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/93vyyjy56ttqvs24vx2y6/2025-09-10-17-39-03.mp4?rlkey=xzs3s6igta9d2jm64hn0h5zy1&dl=0

I know this topic has been discussed to death And I am not trying to annoy.

I just want to say that Live Smooth is kind of only half way where it would need to be to truly offer the same functionality as Blender or better: ZModeler in that regard. It is a common workflow and I feel why go out of the way to implement live smooth and then not have this aspect covered as well?

I was someone who never thought 3D Coat needed subdiv levels or modeling tools in the first place and I would rather have loved seeing the already present unique strengths improved. However, we're at this point now, 3D Coat now has these tools, so I think it would make sense to integrate them in a thorough and logical way to work in conjunction with the existing ones.

Edited September 10, 2025 by Henry Townshend
typo, add

[Henry Townshend]

A function like this would nicely complement the Modeling->Sculpting workflow and be very useful when using Multi Res during Sculpting based on a modeled object in modeling room. Afaics, this is currently not possible in 3D Coat. So a user does not have precise control over thickness i.e. keeping an even thickness on objects when moving them around using Move Brush in Sculpt Room.

https://help.maxon.net/zbr/en-us/Content/html/user-guide/3d-modeling/modeling-basics/dynamic-subdivision/dynamic-thickness/dynamic-thickness.html

The equivalent in Blender is the Solidify Modifier, which stays intact during Sculpting.

Edited October 9, 2025 by Henry Townshend
add info