Organic

Sculpt

Sculpt turns any solid, surface, SubD or mesh into a piece of digital clay. You paint on it with a brush and the mesh deforms under the cursor, the way you would work wax on the bench. It is meant for the organic part of a design — softening a shank, adding a wave, hollowing the back of a heavy piece — where parametric commands get in the way.

Run it by typing ArtisanSculpt. Anything already selected is picked up by the panel.

Steps

Run ArtisanSculpt.
In Selection, pick the object you want to sculpt.
Choose a brush, set its Radius and Strength, and drag over the surface.
Turn on Symmetry or Radial if the piece is meant to be symmetric.
Use Mask to protect the areas you do not want to touch.
If the piece has to be castable, switch Manufacturing to Min Thickness and keep an eye on the thickness colours.
Confirm to commit the sculpted mesh.

Parameters

Selection

The object to sculpt. Meshes, SubDs, surfaces and polysurfaces are all accepted.

Brush

Nine brushes, one click each:

Brush	What it does
Push / Pull	Moves vertices along the surface normal. The general-purpose brush.
Clay	Builds material up in flat layers, like adding wax with a spatula.
Reduce	Thins the wall from the side you brush, respecting the minimum thickness.
Smooth	Averages neighbouring vertices to remove lumps and facets.
Inflate	Pushes vertices outwards in every direction, swelling the form.
Flatten	Pulls vertices towards the average plane under the brush.
Pinch	Draws vertices towards the centre of the brush, sharpening ridges.
Grab	Drags a whole region with the cursor without changing its volume.
Mask	Paints a protection mask instead of deforming.

Radius — brush size in model units. Range 0.05 to 10, default 2.
Strength — how hard each stroke bites. Range 5% to 100%, default 50%.
Falloff — how the effect fades from the centre of the brush to its edge: Smooth (default), Hard or Constant.

Shortcuts while sculpting: Ctrl inverts the brush, Shift temporarily switches to Smooth, and [ / ] (or + / −) change the radius.

Detail

Dynamic Detail — subdivides the mesh under the brush as you work, so you can keep adding detail without preparing the topology up front.
Detail (%) — how fine that subdivision goes. Range 10% to 100%, default 40%.
Densify — adds resolution to the whole mesh in one pass.
Simplify — reduces the face count of the whole mesh, using the same reducer as ArtisanMeshDecimate.

The Mesh section shows the live vertex and face count so you can see the cost of what you are doing.

Symmetry

Mirror — None (default), Top - XY, Front - ZX or Side - YZ. Every stroke is mirrored across the chosen plane.
Mirror Display — Section Only or Section + Plane (default), which also draws the mirror plane in the viewport.
Plane Color — the colour of that plane. Default is a blue #1E90FF.

Radial

Radial Copies — repeats each stroke around an axis. Range 1 to 32, default 1 (off).
Axis — X, Y or Z (default).

Radial is what you want for bezels, rosettes and any piece built around a centre.

Mask

Masked vertices are frozen: no brush touches them.

Mask Gems — masks every vertex near a gem in the document automatically, so you cannot deform a seat you have already set. Reports how many vertices it masked and around how many gems.
Blur Mask — softens the mask border so the transition is not abrupt.
Invert Mask — swaps masked and unmasked areas.
Clear Mask — removes the mask entirely.

Manufacturing

Mode — None (default) or Min Thickness. In Min Thickness the brushes refuse to push a wall below the value you set, so you cannot sculpt something that will not cast.
Thickness (mm) — the minimum wall. Range 0.1 to 5, step 0.1, default 0.8.
Show Thickness — colours the mesh by wall thickness: red at the minimum, yellow close to it, green comfortable.

When thickness control is on, the panel also reports the weight of the piece and how much you have saved compared to the solid original.

Visualization

Mesh Color — the working colour of the sculpt mesh. Default is a gold #C9A227.
Show Wire — draws the mesh wireframe over the shaded preview.

Mesh

Delete Original — removes the source object when you confirm, leaving only the sculpted mesh.