Sculpting tool to function on a higher level

[Chuck Keysor]

Hello Aspire Experts:

I am working on an Aspire model of an artichoke with about 25 over-lapping leaf/petals/scales. Some of these parts have to be reshaped using the Sculpting tool. Yet when I select a part and sculpt it, I of course loose all visibility of the rest of the artichoke. So when I sculpt away, to make a part fit in better, I am mostly working blind. As a result, when I go back to fit the sculpted petal into the entire artichoke model, I usually find out I didn't get it right, and have to go back into the sculpting mode. This is a very hit and miss process, so of course I only use sculpting after using every other possible tool first.

Is there any way I can sculpt one single component of a model and still be able to see the rest of the model while I am sculpting on the single part? Based on my viewing of the tutorials and my use of the sculpting tool what I want can't be done. But since I have been wrong enough times in my life to know I don't know anything, I figured I need to ask!

And if it isn't possible to do what I want, then I'd like to add this functionality to my Christmas list for some future upgrade. Because it is so hard to sculpt things that fit into an assembly, without being able to see how the part fits into the rest of the model while you are sculpting, such a change could be a very significant improvement.

Thank you, Chuck

[Adrian]

You can click on the "Show grayscale background" to show the artichoke behind the petal while sculpting.

[mtylerfl]

Ditto to Adrian's reply - that's a feature I use all the time. (It was featured and explained in a Project of the Month instructions as soon as that feature, and others, were publicly released.)

A particularly useful feature addition would be a way to isolate an area for sculpting on a baked (or not baked) model...I'm thinking a closed vector around the area would suffice as a boundary. Currently, there is no association between vectors in the 2D View and models in the Sculpting View, so it may be quite an effort to reprogram that kind of functionality, so it is a "wish" for now.

[Chuck Keysor]

Thank you Adrian and Michael for your prompt replies! Unfortunately, the grey scale preview does not help me.

To better explain my hope, I have attached the artichoke (sorry for the Easter-egg colors, but it helps me keep track of what is what...) In my sculpting, I want to be able to adjust and tweak individual petals (I'm calling each colored part a petal, but that is not biologically the correct name......) to improve how they fit with the neighboring petals. With the grey scale preview enabled, it doesn't show me the other petals in such a way that I can see how the changes I am making affect the fit with the other petals.

So what I'd like to be able to do would be to sculpt away on an individual petal, and see right then and there (well, a lag of a few seconds is OK...) how the part fits in with the others, without having to leave the sculpt mode. Is there any hope to do this in the future even????

Thanks again, Chuck

[redwood]

I have the same issue, except on a face. I would like to sculpt some areas of the face, but unless I bake the whole face, I can't see the eyes, nose or mouth.

[Chuck Keysor]

Thank you Redwood for the confirmation that Aspire's present inability to view an entire object when sculpting on one part creates a difficulty. Yes, working on a face would be certainly complicated if you couldn't see how the eyes related to the nose, or the ears to the mouth while you were carving.

Making a part look right all by itself is just the start, but making it look right when viewing the entire composition is the final step. That final step is greatly complicated with the present sculpting set-up in Aspire. For artistic application, this would seem to me to be a very significant shortfall, and therefore a great opportunity for an improvement in Aspire!

Hopefully some other people will speak up. Thanks, Chuck

[Leo]

If you have two monitors it would be nice to have the full size view in one monitor and work on fine details on the other monitor. Of course both are live and real time updated. OR, I believe other software packages have viewports or windows.

I wonder if Aspire view tiles will work in a satisfactory way. I have not tried this

[Leo]

nope - that doesn't work

[TReischl]

Don't want to tread on any toes here, especially Team Vectic's.

Vectric's "sculpting" tools seem to me that they are mostly designed for tweaking models, not so much as a tool for basic creation of models. Ya, sure, one CAN use them in that manner, and I CAN hook up a plow to my car and use it to turn over the dirt in the lower forty.

I would create that model in one of the low end solid modelers. One in which I could create one of those "petals" and then dupe/move/tilt/squoosh to my heart's content. A LOT less frustrating. Then pass it out as an STL.