Sculpt Roadmap #93226

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This is a high-level overview of the planned roadmap for sculpt mode.
Note the order of items may change based on user feedback.

VDMs

An important part of the roadmap is VDMs, or Vector Displacement Maps. VDMs are textures (either uv-mapped textures or multires grids) that store tangent-space displacements. They have a number of advantages:

VDMs use a lot (as in a lot) less memory.
They save a huge amount of GPU bandwidth.
Users can sculpt a lower-resolution mesh and see the higher-resolution detail applied as a normal map.

Note that VDMs will be implemented as part of a unified displacement stack along with sculpt layers.

Roadmap

Very Near Term

Move sculpt colors out of experimental in master.

Near Term

Merge sculpt-dev into master.
- Review all new brushes and hide any that are unstable or buggy behind experimental preferences.

Medium Term

Begin incremental C++ refactor.
Unified displacement stack with support for:
- Vector displacement maps.
- Sculpt layers.
Multires Improvements:
- Custom attribute support.
- Speed up switching levels.
- Treat multires grids as a type of VDM.

Remove PBVH_GRIDS. Load active subdivision level into a PBVH_FACES. This way the full set of sculpt brushes will be available for the densest multires level users can fit into RAM. Finer levels are accessible through a subset of brushes that support VDM.

Brush presets and asset manager.
The Great UI Update.
New brush texture system.
Node-based brush editor.
Sculpt on UV unwrapped mesh.
Lattice-based elastic deform brush. Lattice cage is created from an octree.
Faster OBJ export/import
Multires export/import via PTex

Long Term

GPU compute (CUDA? HIPS? OpenCL?).
Rewrite paint mode.
New quad remesher.
Sculpt proxies. Associate a low-res mesh with a high-res

 one and update it when the sculpt mesh changes.

Smooth brush whose strength does not depend on

 topology.

Data-oriented C++ BREP.

This is a high-level overview of the planned roadmap for sculpt mode. Note the order of items may change based on user feedback. # VDMs An important part of the roadmap is VDMs, or Vector Displacement Maps. VDMs are textures (either uv-mapped textures or multires grids) that store tangent-space displacements. They have a number of advantages: * VDMs use a lot (as in a **lot**) less memory. * They save a huge amount of GPU bandwidth. * Users can sculpt a lower-resolution mesh and see the higher-resolution detail applied as a normal map. Note that VDMs will be implemented as part of a unified displacement stack along with sculpt layers. # Roadmap ## Very Near Term # Move sculpt colors out of experimental in master. ## Near Term - Merge sculpt-dev into master. - Review all new brushes and hide any that are unstable or buggy behind experimental preferences. ## Medium Term - Begin incremental C++ refactor. - Unified displacement stack with support for: - Vector displacement maps. - Sculpt layers. - Multires Improvements: - Custom attribute support. - Speed up switching levels. - Treat multires grids as a type of VDM. ## Remove PBVH_GRIDS. Load active subdivision level into a PBVH_FACES. This way the full set of sculpt brushes will be available for the densest multires level users can fit into RAM. Finer levels are accessible through a subset of brushes that support VDM. - Brush presets and asset manager. - The Great UI Update. - New brush texture system. - Node-based brush editor. - Sculpt on UV unwrapped mesh. - Lattice-based elastic deform brush. Lattice cage is created from an octree. - Faster OBJ export/import - Multires export/import via PTex ## Long Term - GPU compute (CUDA? HIPS? OpenCL?). - Rewrite paint mode. - New quad remesher. - Sculpt proxies. Associate a low-res mesh with a high-res ``` one and update it when the sculpt mesh changes. ``` # Smooth brush whose strength does not depend on ``` topology. ``` # Data-oriented C++ BREP.

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*This comment was removed by @thinsoldier*

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Removed the last comment. Please use other channels for user feedback and feature requests: https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Communication/Contact#User_Feedback_and_Requests

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In #93226#1273630, @ThomasDinges wrote:
Removed the last comment. Please use other channels for user feedback and feature requests: https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Communication/Contact#User_Feedback_and_Requests

Oh man, please don't delete other people comments just like that. At least wait until the owner of the task say something. Maybe he would like to hear the feedback and suggestions.
Gotta be more flexible, guys.

> In #93226#1273630, @ThomasDinges wrote: > Removed the last comment. Please use other channels for user feedback and feature requests: https://wiki.blender.org/wiki/Communication/Contact#User_Feedback_and_Requests Oh man, please don't delete other people comments just like that. At least wait until the owner of the task say something. Maybe he would like to hear the feedback and suggestions. Gotta be more flexible, guys.

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Is this still on the agenda (don't know where else to ask this)? Because as I saw in the grants page (https://fund.blender.org/grants/) Joe Eagar only got grant for 3 month .
This will be a game changer for sculpting in blender.

Is this still on the agenda (don't know where else to ask this)? Because as I saw in the grants page (https://fund.blender.org/grants/) Joe Eagar only got grant for 3 month . This will be a game changer for sculpting in blender.

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Changed status from 'Needs Triage' to: 'Archived'

I think it's fair to close this task at this point. Many of the mentioned points are either in discussion as part of different projects or are too vague long term feature proposals.
This was never enforced as an official roadmap and we should look at these points as individual projects/tasks.

I think it's fair to close this task at this point. Many of the mentioned points are either in discussion as part of different projects or are too vague long term feature proposals. This was never enforced as an official roadmap and we should look at these points as individual projects/tasks.

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Sculpt Roadmap #93226