SculptForge

Your first sculpt in 10 minutes

Never sculpted before? In about ten minutes this lesson turns the default sphere into a little mushroom house: a glossy red cap with raised white spots, a round cream house under it, a wooden door and glowing windows. It ends with a render you can share. You only need the built-in brushes, a mouse (a pen tablet is nicer, but not required) and these twelve steps.

The finished mushroom house
The finished mushroom house

The lesson uses the default look: the SculptForge layout, with the menus File, Edit, Sculpt, Paint, Mesh, View, Render, Help along the top, a tool shelf under them, the brushes along the bottom and the Tool panel on the right. If you switched to the ZBrush-style layout, the ZBrush-style layout notes say where things are there. Every step can be undone with Ctrl+Z, so experiment freely.

1. Start with a sphere#

Goal: a fresh sphere, seen from the front.

  1. Press Ctrl+N (File > New Sphere).
  2. Press F to frame it. To look around: drag on the empty background to rotate, Alt + drag on the background to move the view, scroll to zoom. Press F again whenever you lose it.
  3. Check that X is lit on the tool shelf: symmetry is on, so everything you do on one side happens on the other.
The default sphere in the SculptForge layout
The default sphere in the SculptForge layout

2. Mask the top, pull down the walls#

Goal: a taller house body under a round top.

  1. In the Tool panel on the right, open Masking and click Mask Rectangle.
  2. Hold Ctrl and drag a box from the empty background over the upper half of the sphere. The top turns dark: it is masked, and brushes leave it alone.
  3. Pick Move: press 4, or click Move on the bottom shelf. Press ] many times (or drag Draw Size on the tool shelf) until the brush circle is wider than the sphere.
  4. Drag from the bottom of the sphere straight down a little. The lower half stretches into walls.
The upper half masked
The upper half masked
The walls pulled down
The walls pulled down

3. Colour the cap and the walls#

Goal: a red cap and cream walls, with a clean line between them.

  1. Open Paint. In Vertex Paint & Color, pick a warm cream in the colour wheel and click Fill. Fill paints what isn't masked: the walls.
  2. In Masking, click Invert: now the walls are masked.
  3. Open Paint again, click the red swatch, then Fill: the cap.
Filling the cap red
Filling the cap red

4. Pull out the cap#

Goal: a wide cap that hangs over the walls.

  1. In Masking, click Blur once: the mask's edge gets a little softer, so the cap bends smoothly.
  2. Keep Move and make the brush smaller with [, about half the sphere.
  3. Start just inside the sphere's left edge, right above the line, and drag out to the left and a little down. Symmetry pulls the right side too.
  4. Press down a little on the very top of the cap to flatten it.
The cap pulled out over the walls
The cap pulled out over the walls

5. Round it out with Inflate#

Goal: a puffy dome and a round little house.

  1. Press Ctrl+Shift+A to clear the mask.
  2. Pick Inflate: press 5. Drag across the top of the cap twice, then across the lower walls twice.
Cap and walls inflated
Cap and walls inflated

6. Divide twice#

Goal: enough polygons for crisp details and colours.

  1. Press Ctrl+D twice (Tool > Geometry > Divide). Each Divide makes four polygons out of every one and smooths the shape: about 1.3 million triangles now.
Divided twice: the same shape, smoother
Divided twice: the same shape, smoother

7. Cut a door#

Goal: a door with real depth.

  1. Pick Crease: press 6. Make the brush small with [.
  2. Drag up one side of the door, from the bottom of the wall, twice; symmetry cuts the other side. Then a short stroke over the top, towards the middle.
  3. Pick Clay: press 2. Hold Alt and drag up inside the door twice: Clay digs in.
The door cut and dug in
The door cut and dug in

8. Make round windows#

Goal: two framed windows.

  1. Keep Clay. Click twice (without dragging) beside the door, halfway up the wall: a round frame. Symmetry adds the second window.
  2. Make the brush smaller with [, hold Alt and click twice in the same spot: the glass sinks into the frame.
Two framed windows
Two framed windows

9. Raise the spots#

Goal: round bumps on the cap.

  1. Pick Inflate: press 5.
  2. Click three times on each spot: a few on each side of the cap and a couple near the top.
Spots raised on the cap
Spots raised on the cap

10. Paint the spots white#

Goal: crisp white spots.

  1. Press P (or click Paint on the tool shelf): the brush now paints colour without changing the shape.
  2. Give it a hard edge: with the cursor over the canvas press O (Falloff), type -70 and press Enter.
  3. Pick white and click once on every spot.
White spots
White spots

11. Paint the door and windows#

Goal: a wooden door and glowing windows.

  1. Pick a warm brown and paint inside the door.
  2. Pick a bright yellow, make the brush a little smaller with [, and click on the windows.
  3. Press P again to go back to sculpting.
The door and windows painted
The door and windows painted

12. Shade it and save a render#

Goal: a picture of your sculpt to share.

  1. Press M over the canvas and click White: a clean material that shows your colours.
  2. Open Render > Materials and click PBR under Viewport Shading: studio lighting with soft reflections.
  3. Turn the view to a three-quarter angle, a little from above, and press F.
  4. Click Save Render at the bottom of Render > Materials. The status bar names the picture (twice the size of the view); find it under Library > Image.
  5. Press Ctrl+S to save the project.
Render > Materials with PBR shading and Save Render
Render > Materials with PBR shading and Save Render

Well done: that's a sculpt, painted and rendered.

What's next#

Also in the app: Help > User Guide (Shift+F1). Found a mistake? Edit this page on GitHub.