Editors

Sculpt Mode

Sculpt the hair curves with brushes: the menus, brushes, tool settings and context menus of Sculpt Mode.

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Hair Curves › Sculpt Mode: every menu, tool, sidebar tab and context menu of this mode, on one page. Use the panels on the right to jump between the regions.

Snap to Deformed Surface

Move curves to the nearest deformed surface so that the first point is exactly on the surface mesh. This re-attaches the curves to a deformed surface using the existing attachment information.

This only works when the topology of the surface mesh has not changed.

Entry	What it does
Snap to Nearest Surface	Move curves to the nearest surface so that the first point is exactly on the surface mesh. This finds the closest point of the surface of the root point of every curve and moves the root there.
Convert to Particle System	Add a new or update an existing hair particle system on the surface object. The new Particle System is the legacy hair system. This does not remove the hair curve object, but creates/updates a new Particle System.

Tool Shelf

Tools

Tool Shelf - Hair Curve - Sculpt mode

In Sculpt mode with a hair curve object selected, you will find mainly brushes in the tool shelf. This mode is used for styling hair curves with various tools, including adding, combing and more.

Hair Curve Sculpting is a process to deform hair strands by using brushes.

Annotate tools

The annotate tools at the end of the list are explained in the chapter 7.1.1 Editors - 3D View - Tool Shelf - Object Mode. We won't cover this tools again here.

Brush cursor

When you activate one of the brushes then the mouse cursor turns into a brush cursor. This cursor represents the size of the current brush.

Brush settings

The different brushes settings can be found in the sidebar in the tools tab. Or in the properties editor in the Active Tool and Workspace settings tab. Or above the header area.

The different brushes settings in the Active Tool and Workspace settings are explained in the chapter 7.3.16 Editors - 3D Viewport - Sidebar - Tool Tab - Hair Curve - Sculpt Mode.

We won't cover this chapters again, but just explain what the different brushes do in this mode.

Hotkeys

Pressing X allows you to change the brush size onscreen. Drag the mouse to increase or decrease the size. Left click applies the new size, right click cancels the resizing.

Pressing C allows you to change the strength of the brush. Drag the mouse to increase or decrease the size. Left click applies the new size, right click cancels the resizing.

Symmetry

Note that the sculpting mode starts with Symmetry off. You can turn this on per the desired axis from in the tool header.

Tool Shelf - Hair Curve - Sculpt mode - Brushes

Brush

Various brushes to modify the hair curves. From comb to smooth

Comb

The comb brush acts like a true hair comb to pull strands at an angle. Click and hold it to pull strands with the comb.

Grow/Shrink

This brush grows existing hair or inversely shrinks it. Useful for extending hair without reshaping it.

Pinch

This brush pulls hair curves together towards the center of the brush. Useful for hair clumping.

Puff

This brush pushes out the hair strand from the root by pushing a force on the tips. This is useful to add volume to hair.

Pull Tips

Pulls out the tips.

Slide

This is similar to the grab brush in Mesh Sculpt Mode, this pulls the root and control points of the hair curves over the surface to a new location.

Selection Paint

This brush draws a selection mask to aid in isolating strands. Isolated control points are lighter grey, and locked control points are dark grey.

Density

Adds more hair strands and increases the density.

Add

This brush adds hair strands at a set density onto the mesh. Useful for painting new hair. When you add an “Empty Hair” curve object, there will be no hair till you add strands.

Delete

This brush completely removes any hair curves from the surface.

Sculpt Mode

In Sculpt mode you can sculpt the hair curves.

Brush Asset Panel

The Brush Asset Panel contains the different Brushes and some Brush settings. Choose and adjust your current active brush.

Browse Brush

The big image at the top is a dropdown box that allows you to choose a brush. Click at it, and you will see the different brushes. A click at one of the images will choose this brush then.

Brushes are assets. You can load them from different libraries if you want.

This menu becomes active when you create a new brush. Which can be done wiht the Plus button in the name property. This data cannot be changed for builtin system brushes.

Edit Metadata

Calls a popup where you can adjust further informations and settings for the brush.

Entry	What it does
Catalog	The asset catalog in which the brush is stored.
Author	The brush author.
Desctription	Add a description
OK / Cancel	Accept or decline the changes.
Edit Preview Image	Allows you to load a custom preview image.

Entry	What it does
Save Brush Asset	This button is just active with a custom brush. It saves all changes made at the brush settings into the current custom brush.
Revert Brush Asset	Reverts the brush settings to the default values of the brush in the asset library.

Name

The edit box below the Image shows the name of the current active brush.

The + button allows you to add a new pencil with the current settings. Note that the brushes are NOT automatically saved when you close Bforartists. You need to save the brush asset. See above.

The X button deletes the brush from the brushes list and from the asset library. This button is just active with a custom brush. You will be prompted by a warning so that you don't accidentally remove the brush.

Brush Settings Panel

Use unified size

The size is shared across the brushes.

Use Pressure

The button behind the edit box enables tablet pressure sensitivity for strength.

Pressure Size Curve

Behind the pressure size button there is a button to reveal the size pressure curve panel. When you activate Size Pressure for tablets, then the Size Pressure curve becomes active, and can be adjusted.

The pressure size curve allows you to adjust the falloff curve for the tablet pressure. It shows when Use Pressure is activated. The curve panel shows when clicking at the button.

Selecting Points

You can select curve points. This reveals two edit boxes for the x and y coordinate of this point.

Selected points can be moved around. Left click at them, hold the mouse button down and move them to a new location.

Adding Points

You can add new curve points by simply left clicking at the curve. Move the mouse to position them where you need it.

Entry	What it does
Zoom in	Zooms in.
Zoom out	Zooms out.

Clipping options

Set up clipping for the stroke.

Tools

Tools is a menu where you can find some curve related tools.

Entry	What it does
Reset View	Resets the curve windows zoom.
Reset Curve	Resets the curve to the initial shape.

Handles

You can choose between Auto handle, Vector Handle and Auto Clamped.

Entry	What it does
Position X / Y	The position of the selectedc curve point.
Delete Points	Deletes the selected curve point.

Curve Presets

A curve preset to start with.

Brush Settings Panel - Comb

Size

The Size of the brush.

Strength

The strength of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Grow/Shrink

Size

The Size of the brush.

Entry	What it does
Strength	The strength of the brush.
Direction	Add or subtract the effect of the brush. Add grows hair curves, Subtract shorten the hair curves.
Scale Uniform	Grow or shrink curves by changing their size uniformly instead of using trimming or extrapolation. This is useful for preserving control point count.
Minimum Length	Avoids shrinking curves shorter than this length.

Brush Settings Panel - Pinch

Size

The Size of the brush.

Strength

The strength of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Puff

Size

The Size of the brush.

Strength

The strength of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Pull Tip

Size

The Size of the brush.

Strength

The strength of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Slide

Entry	What it does
Size	The Size of the brush.
Strength	The strength of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Smooth

Size

The Size of the brush.

Strength

The strength of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Add

Entry	What it does
Size	The Size of the brush.
Strength	The strength of the brush.
Count	Number of curves added by the add brush.
Interpolate	Length: Use length of the curve in close proximity. · Size: Use Size of the curve in close proximity. · Shape: Use shape of the curve in close proximity. · Point Cloud: Use the number of points from the curve in close proximity.
(Curve) Length	Length of the newly added curves when it is not interpolated from other curves. · (Curve) Size: Size of the newly added curves when it is not interpolated from other curves.
Points (per Curve)	Number of control points in a newly added curve.

Brush Settings Panel - Delete

Size

The Size of the brush.

Brush Settings Panel - Density

Size

The Size of the brush.

Entry	What it does
Strength	The strength of the brush.
Count Max	How many times the density brush tries to add new curves.
Interpolate	Length: Use length of the curve in close proximity. · Size: Use Size of the curve in close proximity. · Shape: Use shape of the curve in close proximity. · Point Cloud: Use the number of points from the curve in close proximity.
(Curve) Length	Length of the newly added curves when it is not interpolated from other curves. · (Curve) Size: Size of the newly added curves when it is not interpolated from other curves.
Points (per Curve)	Number of control points in a newly added curve.

Brush Settings Panel - Select

Size

The Size of the brush.

Entry	What it does
Strength	The strength of the brush.
Direction	The direction of the brush.