SculptForge for studios

SculptForge is built to drop into animation, VFX and game studios that run their own pipelines: native on Linux, scriptable, standards-based, with no licence server and nothing that phones home. This chapter is for pipeline TDs and IT: the VFX Reference Platform builds, Rez deployment, shared brush libraries, environment variables, headless use and licensing.

VFX Reference Platform builds#

SculptForge tracks the VFX Reference Platform. Every commit is built and tested in the platform's reference environments:

SculptForge doesn't depend on Qt, OpenEXR, Boost, TBB or other platform libraries, so it can't conflict with the versions your other tools load. Its few dependencies (SDL3, Dear ImGui, GLM, ufbx) are linked into the binaries.

Each release includes SculptForge-<version>-linux-<arch>-vfx2026.tar.gz (Rocky 8, glibc 2.28) and ...-vfx2027.tar.gz (Rocky 9, glibc 2.34), for x86_64 and ARM64, with the Python module under lib/sculptforge/python.

Deploy with Rez#

packaging/rez/package.py in the source tree builds and installs a Rez package:

cd packaging/rez
SCULPTFORGE_PYTHON=$(which python3.13) rez-build --install     # or --release for your release repository
rez-env sculptforge -- sculptforge                              # the app
rez-env sculptforge -- sculptforge-cli --list                   # every pipeline command
rez-env sculptforge python-3.13 -- python -c "import sculptforge"

The package puts bin/ on PATH and the Python module on PYTHONPATH, and sets SCULPTFORGE_ROOT. The Python module is built for the first python3 found unless SCULPTFORGE_PYTHON names an interpreter.

Studio brush libraries#

Each artist's own brushes live in their user brush library, one .sfbrush file per brush (see Brush Lab and sharing brushes). To give a whole team the same brushes, put .sfbrush files on a share and list it in SCULPTFORGE_BRUSH_PATH:

export SCULPTFORGE_BRUSH_PATH=/studio/brushes:/show/troll/brushes    # ';' between folders on Windows
sculptforge-cli -c 'brush_library'      # every brush, where it comes from and its file, plus the folders

• The app, sculptforge-cli and the Python module load these folders at start-up, read-only: SculptForge never writes into them, so the share can be mounted read-only.
• Studio brushes show a studio tag in the Custom brushes list.
• When brushes share a name, the artist's own wins over a studio one, which wins over a built-in. Among studio folders, the first one listed wins.
• Refining a studio brush in Brush Lab saves the artist's own version (tagged yours) without touching the share. Deleting that version brings the studio brush back.
• To publish a brush, copy its .sfbrush file into the share: right-click it in the Custom brushes list > Save .sfbrush..., or take it from an artist's user library.

With Rez, set the share once for everyone: when SCULPTFORGE_STUDIO_BRUSHES is set as the package resolves (in a site package, your rezconfig or the launcher), it is appended to SCULPTFORGE_BRUSH_PATH.

export SCULPTFORGE_STUDIO_BRUSHES=/studio/brushes
rez-env sculptforge -- sculptforge

Environment variables#

Keys from the environment are used when none is saved in the app, so a launcher can supply them without writing them to each artist's settings.

Headless and farm use#

• sculptforge-cli runs every editing operation without a display: imports, remeshing, decimation, LOD chains, FBX, USD and glTF export, splat conversion and AI generation. See Scripting and automation.
• sculptforge --render out.png --turntable 8 renders review images and turntables offscreen. It needs an OpenGL 3.3 context; on a headless Linux node, run it under Xvfb.
• sculptforge-cli --mcp exposes the same operations to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol.
• import sculptforge gives Python the same commands plus NumPy arrays of the mesh, for your own tools.

A typical farm job turns incoming scans into game-ready assets:

sculptforge-cli --set in=/ingest/scan_042.ply --set usd=/assets/scan_042.usda --set glb=/assets/scan_042.glb -c '
  open path=$in
  splat_transform rotate_x=180 fit=true
  splat_clean
  splat_to_mesh detail=320 preset=game color=texture
  export_usd path=$usd
  export_lods path=$glb levels=4 ratio=0.5
'

A --set variable replaces a whole value, so pass complete paths (with their extensions) as variables.

Formats in a pipeline#

Binary .usdc files and USD references or payloads aren't read yet; convert with usdcat in.usd -o out.usda. The project format is described in docs/project-format.md in the source tree, so pipeline tools can read it without SculptForge.

Licensing#

SculptForge is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. In practice:

• Using it is unrestricted, commercially or otherwise, on any number of machines. There are no seats, licence servers or accounts.
• Your artwork belongs to you. The GPL covers the program, not the models you make with it.
• You can modify it in-house. The GPL only requires you to share source if you distribute the modified program outside your organisation. Internal use, including across your own facilities and farm, is generally not considered distribution. (This is the common reading of the GPL, not legal advice; check with your counsel.)
• SculptForge has no telemetry and no servers of its own. AI features are optional and talk only to the service each artist chooses, or to your own ComfyUI server.

Not yet#

Planned pipeline features, roughly in order: OpenColorIO viewport display, Alembic export, fuller USD authoring (layers, variants, references, .usdc), UVs and texture baking, multiresolution sculpting. Pipeline requests are welcome as issues on the project's GitHub page.

See also#

• Scripting and automation
• Exporting, Send to Unreal and GoZ
• Brush Lab and sharing brushes
• Image and text to 3D: running models on your own ComfyUI server
• Troubleshooting