Sculptris Alpha

By: Derek Yu

On: December 20th, 2009

DrPetter, the talented developer behind Deflectorpool and Sfxr, just released an alpha for a new tool, called Sculptris. Sculptris lets you make 3d models quickly and intuitively as shown in the above video. You can export your creations as OBJ files or import OBJ files to use as a base for editing.

It’s really fun to play with. I made this ugly head after messing around for a bit.

This is an alpha, so the good Doctor recommends saving frequently, and reporting any bugs (or general inquiries) to him at the Sculptris forums. According to the readme, the final version is due in early 2010.

Posted in Developers, Swedes, Tools, Windows | Tags: DrPetter

http://www.studiostok.se David

First it says tool, then it says game. What is it really? :)
Derek

It’s a tool. I mistyped.
Protector one

Wow, that’s amazing. Bookmarked for future reference.
Shoo

This is so cool. I’ll have to check it out. I wonder how it handles low-poly.
UDM

Very nice indeed. It’ll make organic modelling so much easier. Thanks for the find Derek!

Oh, and native format is .obj too?! YES! :D
Shagacity

Sounds like a cool zbrush like tool :)
korsteve

What is that he’s making in the video?
Jamal

You gonna make a 3d game Derek?
torsion

I’m going to have nightmares about a skeletal Kirby now.

Awesome.
0rel

wow! looks great…
DrPetter’s new gift to the world? pure genius.

after testing it a little bit, i only miss kind of a “melt” function to make holes… otherwise, it works already great… impressive tool!
http://lumberingdream.com/ !CE-9

this is brutally amazing, on so many levels.
Charlton heston

wow DrPetters is the coolest dawg ever.
I was just recently thinking that it would be difficult to take advantage of the full potential of the unreal engine without access to some version of zBrush or something.
DrPetter

Thanks, people.

UDM: Not native format, but you can export and import it (with limited compatibility atm)
Native format is binary and much smaller.

0rel: “melt” to make holes? That sounds odd. Have you tried the inverse of draw and inflate (right mouse button)? They both make holes with different smoothness.

Also, I recently added a tablet-friendly option to do inverse sculpt with shift+left mouse, so download again if you want that.
Secret Admirer

Holy tits, a free zbrush.
origamibunny

oh wow. with something like this i might actually have the patience for doing 3d stuff
http://iterationgames.com jph_wacheski

Wow, some more from over here,. A very cool gift to play with for the holidays. Is very easy to create extremely detailed and organic shapes,. just what I like. Hope to see this continue to develop., but I will go ahead and use some niffty models in my games,. seems we have been missing all the fun the ppl that could affort the high-end modeling apps have been keeping all to themselves. Thanks Doc!
Gutter

The site says that he has been developing this since early December 2009.

Thats 12 days. I can’t wait in 12 more days to see this replace ZBrush!

(I’m denying him his Christmas for my own personal gain)
http://xspblog.com XSportSeeker

Looks interesting…
But for future showcases, I’d recommend a trailer/video with the making of something less… abstract. :D
deadassassin

Ok, I might be being teally dumb, but I can’t work out how to open it. I’ve downloaded the zip file and unzipped it, but I’ve no idea how to run it =/
Codemonkey

Gawsh, DrPetter just keeps giving doesn’t he?
0rel

@melt function: sorry for being unclear… i just tried to connect both arms of the “figure” sample model. first, i thought maybe the mesh blobs together like metaballs do… one workaround though i’ve figured out, to make “topological holes”, is to disable symmetry, bend an arm, so that it intersects the symmetry plane, and then to activate symmetry again… that’s a bit too spacial though, to be really useful for sculpting arbitrary meshes… but another way i’ve found to overcome this, is to setup a very rough model in a normal 3d app (like blender) first, and to import it as obj file… this even worked with completely unlinked sub meshes! (screenshot. pretty cool!, so that way almost everything is possible… amazing.
(but perhaps a melt/burn tool would be useful in the program itself sometime (i have no idea how difficult that would be to implement though)).

overall, the interface feels very slick and intuitive. also, the rendering, and how the triangles constantly adapt to the new shape is amazing… the presentation in the editor itself looks already beautiful and smooth… compared to the sculpt feature in blender, it is also much faster to work with, here… on my laptop, i can’t really use that feature in blender, but this, this already works like a charm. thanks a lot! i’ll definitely doodle around with this again soon…

(still, i encountered some crashes while testing it with big meshes… after deactivating symmetry in this file, not sure…
just some feedback… :)
Skofo

Pretty interesting! It seems like the MyPaint of 3D software. I especially like the GUI; minimalist yet friendly yet edgy. A perfect blend!

A few things:

1. It is rather slow for me, and I have a pretty decent PC. Is it just a bug or do I have to have a cutting-edge PC to use this smoothly? What do you think about adding a non-smoothed view for people with subpar machines?

2. Do you plan on supporting platforms other than Windows?

3. What do you think about eventually open sourcing or selling this?
Nobel prize committee

Hello, we are looking for some contact with DRPetters. The nobel peace prize to Obama was amistake and we’d like to give it to DRPetters instead, thanks.
Amirai

Wow. Seriously awesome. I was able to start working with it immediately and come up with some nice stuff. Very intuitive.

Ways to make it better:

– Smaller minimum brush size. It’s hard to make small details with some brushes.
– Keyboard shortcut for resizing the brush/brush strength. Holding down a key and the left/right mouse so you don’t have to constantly move the mouse back up to the top of the screen would be awesome, like how painter does it.
– Light controls (rotate them around the model, adjust brightness). Some parts of the model I was working on were in almost complete darkness.
http://jrjellybeans.wordpress.com/ jrjellybeans

This is crazy awesome! I wish I was smart enough to make something like this…

When the video first started I thought he was just going to make a pair a boobs. That too would have been crazy awesome…
Z

Holy crap I’m astounded by the tools DrPetter makes.
Zack

Won’t allow me to open, I get the following errors in a “WinRAR Diagnostic Message” saying the following:

!The system cannot find the file specified.

!Cannot execute “C:DOCUME~1ZachLOCALS~1TempRar$EX28.000Sculptris.exe”

Looks like a very useful and flexable tool, but I can’t use it. :(
Any help?
junkboy

Very impressive! I played around with it a bit, even though it brought my computer down to its knees after a short while..

http://i48.tinypic.com/dwop45.jpg
Seraph

Am I the only one turned on by this?
http://vacuumflowers.com/ Sparky

Wow, this looks so slick DrPetter :)

What a nice toylike interface! I’ll take this over ZBrush’s bloated, counterintuitive UI any day.
reindall

It looks interesting, but my real question is – what the hell did he create in that video? :-p
falsion

awesome, an indie ZBrush. and it’s free too. this will be an amazing asset for people making 3D games. keep up the good work, doctor.
falsion

@junkboy holy crap, that looks amazing.

this program already has some great potential.
Zack

Someplace else I could get this download? I still can’t get it to work and I tried literally everything. If anyone could upload it and host it, that’ll be cool. :3
Obama

Too late, let it go
undertech

Mr. President, get back to work.

On second thoug-OH CRAP SECRET SERV-
xhunterko

I was just wondering. Does this have any skeleton support at all?

(pst, there’s a secret door on the left of the cell your in. It goes out to the white house ground keepers building. Get a uniform on and “clock out”. They won’t know your missing.) :)
pgil

so who else tried to make boobs first thing?
Gainsworthy

Ah, Doctor Petter gives us a brilliant little game, and now a sculpting tool? Too much! And bravo.
Elijah Katz

gotta love doctor peter…
he really needs to get his website back up…
all his programs are amazing
Boris

Dear DrPetter:

You are my new favorite person.
karry

So this guy invented…Blender ?
namuol

@pgil
i inadvertently made boobs first thing. maybe it was subconscious, who knows.

great tool, despite my 7th grade brain.
http://www.youtube.com/user/Davioware Davioware

DrPetter, your tools are ridiculously useful and cool.
Rorkimaru

Looking at this makes me wish that blender’s sculpt mode had all those nice features like the dynamically updating topology as well as the few extra brushes you added and the masking mode.

I’m going to post this over at the BA forums and maybe some of these features will be implemented.

The interface looks great and intuitive and it appears to handle detail very well. I wish it worked on Linux so I could try it out on my PC. Might have to get a hr or two with my wacomb on someone’s PC…
Impossible

This is cool because it’s free and perhaps open source, but seriously… 45 posts and not a single mention of Mudbox?
morlan

DrP, you are a cool and refreshing beverage.

This tool looks neat, but i wish you would finish Musagi.
jimmykane

@Rorkimaru:

Regarding Linux, did you try running it in Wine? I had no problems running it in there, made my own katamari-like object and exported a .obj file.
Mathias

For the record, I’ve had this idea for years.
Al Gore

No, I did. Get lost.