7.5 Surface Mode & Tools

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In version 3.2 of 3D-Coat the surface tools have undergone some major changes. Most noteably there are new tools and speed improvements. To change to surface mode, you must click on the Cube icon in the VoxTree for the Layer you would

like to edit in surface mode, you will then see a Wavy line icon which represents surface mode. Surface mode is much faster for sculpting than the regular volume mode. Only the surface mode tools will be available while editing in this mode, plus with the Pose, Move and Transform tools. Some of the surface tools have counter-parts from the volume sculpting tools. There are a number of unique tools in this mode as well, which we shall discuss below:

Draw. The draw tool is great for sculpting horns, or anything else like that very quickly. It is very much like the airbrush tool, however it only operates on the surface of a volumetric object.
Pinch. This is very great for making very nice tight edges, cavities and peaks. You can better see that on the pictures below. It is indentical to the Vox Pinch tool, however it only operations on the surface of a volumentric object.
Shift. This tool drags the surface topology along with the brush. It’s great for producing wrinkles and so on the character or a creature or for making cloth. It is indentical to the Vox Follow tool, however it only operations on the surface of a volumentric object.

Flatten.jpg
Flatten. This tool has been improved in version 3.2, and now allows for a more predictable behavior. It flattens the area underneath your brush, based on brush size and intensity.
Voxchisel.jpg
Chisel. This tool is new in 3.2. As you stroke along the object with your brush

it will “chisel” away at the surface.
SfClay. Surface clay lets you quickly place strokes onto your voxel sculpt. The difference between this tool and the Carve brush is that it will also simultaneously smooth the surface after you’ve brushed it. It is indentical to the volume Clay tool, but it only operates on the surface of a volumetric object.
SfFill. Surface Fill is a great way to fill in small holes and gaps in your objects. The higher the intensity, the more it will quickly fill the area under your brush.

Extrdirset.jpg
Sffreeze.jpg
Extrude Direction Settings. A few of the new tools in version 3.2 have this option. It allows for user definable extrusions. The extrusion methods are: Average normal, View direction, Along axis (X, Y or Z), Vertex normal & Initial vertex normal.

This setting is unique to the following three tools:
SfExtrude. Extrudes along the surface under your brush, based on your pen Size, Depth and Extrude direction settings.
Gum. The gum tool is really great for getting nice details on a mesh, it is unique to the surface tool set. It’s the fastest way to make skin, pores and wrinkles. The higher resolution the better will details look. This tool is commonly used to sculpt minute details onto an object.
Absolute. Extrudes the surface based on your pen Size, Depth and Extrude direction settings, while also maintaining the underlying surface details and topology.
SfFreeze. This tool, which is new in version 3.2, is a very important addition to the toolset in 3D-Coat! It lets you mask with your brush, a mask which you can then use with any of the surface sculpting tools. It’s simple to use and powerful. You can also use common shortcuts: CTRL+SHIFT+I inverts your selection, CTRL+D deselects.

Rapid.jpg
Rapid. The rapid tool’s name is pretty descriptive, it’s one of the quickest tools in 3D-Coat to sculpt in general shapes. This tool is almost the opposite of the gum tool in this regard, it doesn’t respect pen alphas, only brush size and intensity. Another great thing about the rapid tool, is that if you have two voxel object layers in the viewport that are overlapping eachother in space, it will try its best to compensate by building up the area between the two.

Videoicon.png All Surfase tools demo video
Go to Voxels Video Manual