Challie Mini-figure | Creating Flat Planes

[Dr. Soupie]

Hello all. I've created a little mini figure in Sculptris, and I've had it printed via Shapeways.

I'm very happy with the sculpt. However, one difficulty was getting the feet to be flat. What is the easiest way to create flat planes in Sculptirs. I tried using the flatten tool, but it warped the shape of the feet. Is there a way to "delete" material to flatten portions?

Thanks!

[Jeff_Gerke]

I'd like to know this too.

Actually, all I want to do is have a flat rectangle (but not a plane) that has lots of triangles for sculpting.

Like a canvas stretched across a frame. I want to experiment with some impasto effects.

I created a nice rectangle-canvas in Hexagon, but when I import it into Sculptris it just has no triangles. So when I hit "Subdivide All," it turns my flat canvas into a wacky blob that is no longer flat.

Surely there's a way to take out the software equivalent of a knife and just cut off the clay along flat lines. I used H to hide areas of my blob along straight lines, but I don't know how to then cut off the hidden parts.

Or maybe there's a source of Sculptris shapes I could download from somewhere?

[justadeletedguy]

???


Wings3D has a "Flatten" command in Polygon mode. It works with X,Y,Z ... average Normal, or "pick" Normal. It's not quite the same as Zbrush's clipping brushes, but used along with Inset-grouping and tweak can produce similar results. This example is a Sculptris Import ....

[Jeff_Gerke]

Thanks, deleted.

So you can form cubes and rectangles-with-depth by adding planes together? Grouping them? I've honestly never been able to figure out what to do with the planes. I thought they might help me "cut" clay off to form flat surfaces, but all they've ever done for me is intersect my blob but not be useful.

It is good to know that I can just start with a plane and try my impasto stuff from that flat surface. I didn't know that, so thank you.

Jeff

P.S. Thanks for the tip about Wings3D. Because of some of your videos, I downloaded it and have played with it, but I'm having even less luck with it than with Sculptris. LOL. Noobs, right?

[Jeff_Gerke]

I know it looks like I haven't read the documentation.

Mainly because I haven't read the documentation.

Can't find it, in fact.

I'd love to be able to read it and not have to bother the forums with basic questions like these.

Where can I find the documentation for Sculptris?

Thanks.

Jeff

[Michaevelli81]

In the sculptris folder is a .txt called documentation. It's helpful in some regards but doesn't solve all problems. Attached it anyway...

If you want a simple canvas you can use Meshlab(free and easy to get used to) to subdivide(or create) your rectangle very easily.
Either by subdivision or marching cubes(Filters-Remeshing,simplification and reconstruction).
Basically you can use the marching cubes filter in Meshlab to get an evenly distributed grid and then triangulate it.
You have to play around with the values a little(!) to get the grid size you want.
Also very helpful if you draw basic shapes in sculptris and you want to get an even distribution of polygons for zBrush.
Marching cubes can mess up your mesh with holes though and the repair function in Meshlab can't always fix that properly.

After using the marching cubes make sure to delete the layer with the original model before exporting the .obj(view-show layer dialog).

[Jeff_Gerke]

That's very helpful, Micaevelli81. Thank you!

Jeff

[justadeletedguy]

if you just want different geometry, you can import any quad mesh object from Wings3d or Blender. if you use cylinders or spheres you need to change to topology a bit, Sculptris does not like "Pie-cut" circles....

[Jeff_Gerke]

Thanks, deleted.

So does one change the topology in Wings3D?

Jeff