Blender All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 3

Sculpting in Virtual Space

IN THIS CHAPTER

Working with reference images

Sculpting meshes to have extremely high detail

Figuring out the art of retopology

Over the years, as computers have gotten more powerful and more capable of handling dense models with millions of vertices (sometimes called high-poly meshes, an abbreviation of high-polygon meshes), computer graphics artists have wanted more and more control over the vertices in their meshes. Using a Subdivision Surface modifier is great for adding geometry to make models look more organic, but what if you’re modeling a monster and you want to model a scar on its face? You have to apply the modifier to have access and control over those additional vertices. And even though the computer may be able to handle having them there, a million vertices is a lot for you to try to control and keep track of, even with all the various selection methods and proportional editing. Fortunately, Blender supports multiresolution meshes and a Sculpt mode that allows for dynamic topology.

Without the advent of digital sculpting, it would be much, much more difficult to achieve high detail 3D models like the one in Figure 3-1 as quickly ...