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Learn Hard Surface Sculpting in the free software Blender

All about Alpha and VDM sculpt brushes, and the full process of creating a robot design
 
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Hard Surface sculpting in Blender

This course deals with the full hard surface sculpting workflow in Blender, starting with drawing thumbnails all the way to a finished 3D sculpt. Along the way, we'll learn basic and advanced sculpting tools and brushes. Then we also dive deep into making awesome assets, like alpha textures, tiling displacement maps and hard surface VDM brushes.

Sculpt hard surface mechs in Blender

Included in this course

  • In total 6 hours of video tutorials, narrated in english with captions

  • 2 hours 23 minutes of narrated, edited sculpting videos.

  • 100+ Alpha texture brushes (with preview thumbnails) to append into your project

  • Tiling Displacement maps

  • Hard surface VDM brush (more to be added in future updates)

  • Thumbnail sketches and final design sketch

  • All videos are downloadable for optional offline viewing

  • Procedural pipe models

  • Node groups for baking alphas and tiling displacement maps

  • Mech bust to experiment with

  • The unedited sculpting process is also available, should you want it.

  • Captions in Korean, Japanese and more languages coming!

  •  Free updates

Preview the Curriculum

  1. Download the lessons as ZIP files

    1 lesson
    1. Download the lessons

  2. Watch the lessons online - Part 1 (theory)

    31 lessons
    1. 01 Introduction to the course
    2. 02 Introduction Preferences
    3. 03 Setting up your Wacom tablet
    4. 04 Blender Preferences
    5. 05 Must-Use Add-Ons-1
    6. 06 Introduction Alphas
    7. 07 Intro to Alphas Textures
    8. 08 Guidelines for Modeling for Alphas
    9. 09 Modeling Alphas - Inset Extrude Bevel And Knife-1
    10. 10 Modeling Alphas - Array and Shape Keys
    11. 11 Modeling Alphas With Boolean Cutting-1
    12. 12 Baking Alpha Textures-1
    13. 13 How to use Alpha textures V2
    14. 14 Vdm Brushes From Existing Meshes-1
    15. 14B Vdm Brushes From Existing Meshes
    16. 15 Introduction Tiling Displacement
    17. 16 Sketching a tiling Displacement map
    18. 17 Modeling Tiling Displacement Map V1-1
    19. 18 Bake Tiling Displacement Maps-1
    20. 19 Using The Displacement Map For Creating Concepts-1
    21. 20 Erasing Displacement-1
    22. 21 Mixing Displacement-1
    23. 22 Introduction Cables
    24. 23 Pipes - Basics-1
    25. 24 Pipes - Start And End Caps-1
    26. 25 Pipes - Placing Them-1
    27. 26 Introduction Thumbnailing
    28. 27 Thumbnailing Basics-1
    29. 28 Krita Install and UI scale v2
    30. 29 Krita refining the thumbnail Part 1
    31. 30 Krita refining the thumbnail Part 2

  3. Watch the lessons online - Part 2 (Practical)

    43 lessons
    1. 31 Introduction Sculpting
    2. 32 A Sculpting Part 1 Short
    3. 32 B Sculpting Part 1
    4. 33 A Sculpting Part 2 Short
    5. 33 B Sculpting Part 2
    6. 34 A Sculpting Part 3 Short
    7. 34 B Sculpting Part 3
    8. 35 A Sculpting Part 4 Short
    9. 35 B Sculpting Part 4
    10. 36 A Sculpting Part 5 Short
    11. 36 B Sculpting Part 5
    12. 37 A Sculpting Part 6 Short
    13. 37 B Sculpting Part 6
    14. 38 A Sculpting Part 7 Short
    15. 38 B Sculpting Part 7
    16. 39 A Sculpting Part 8 Short
    17. 39 B Sculpting Part 8
    18. 40 A Sculpting Part 9 Short
    19. 40 B Sculpting Part 9
    20. 41 A Sculpting Part 10 Short
    21. 41 B Sculpting Part 10
    22. 42 A Sculpting Part 11 Short
    23. 42 B Sculpting Part 11
    24. 43 A Sculpting Part 12 Short
    25. 43 B Sculpting Part 12
    26. 44 A Sculpting Part 13 Short
    27. 44 B Sculpting Part 13
    28. 45 A Sculpting Part 14 Short
    29. 45 B Sculpting Part 14
    30. 46 A Sculpting Part 15 Short
    31. 46 B Sculpting Part 15
    32. 47 A Sculpting Part 16 Short
    33. 47 B Sculpting Part 16
    34. 48 A Sculpting Part 17 Short
    35. 48 B Sculpting Part 17
    36. 49 A Sculpting Part 18 Short
    37. 49 B Sculpting Part 18
    38. 50 A Sculpting Part 19 Short
    39. 50 B Sculpting Part 19
    40. 51 A Sculpting Part 20 Short
    41. 51 B Sculpting Part 20
    42. 52 A Sculpting Part 21 Short
    43. 52 B Sculpting Part 21

All about Alpha Textures

Alpha textures are height maps that quickly add intricate details to your model in Sculpt Mode. In this course, we dive into the theory of what makes a nice Alpha texture, how best to model them and then bake them. The course comes with 100+ Alpha textures, so you don't need to buy anything extra.

Learn how to:

Model alphas using various techniques, such as booleans and non-destructive modifier-based workflows. This will help you quickly generate a lot of variations.

We also dive into the theory of what makes a good alpha, and how to bake them perfectly.

Using nodes, we set up a baking system that adds nice bevels to the edges, so we can keep the modeling of these parts nice and simple and still have a great result.

Tiling Displacement Maps

Let's take advantage of the fact that we're sculpting in Blender, which means that we can use tools not normally found in sculpting apps. One of these tools is the tiling displacement map. This quickly adds displacement that you can play and experiment with, in order to rapidly get many ideas for shapes. It only takes minutes to get several iterations, that you can choose the best one from. You can even erase from the displacement parts you don't like, or mix different displacement maps. It's a really creative tool that's bound to make your sculpting workflow more exciting.

Secret Hard Surface concepting techniques:

  • Designing tiling displacement maps in Blender
  • Modeling techniques for tiling maps
  • The best way to bake and export these maps
  • Using them in your Sculpting workflow
  •  Erasing parts non-destructively
  • Mixing different ones together
  • Creating interesting concepts quickly
Learn these techniques

Hard Surface VDMs(Vector Displacement Maps)

Vector Displacement maps are a great new way of adding big details in Sculpt Mode.

But they're more suited to organic things, because you can only create them by sculpting on a Plane, right?

Nope - I'll show you how to turn any model into a VDM. Now you can add complex geometry super fast in Sculpt Mode.

Pipes and cables

We explore modeling techniques and modifiers that allow us to create flexible set-ups for cables.

By using modifiers we can make them as long or short as we want, and use Start and End caps.

We can then place them anywhere on our model for additional hard surface coolness.

Learn how to make cool cables

Get started today!

$69

+ VAT

  • 2+ hour mech sculpting process
  • Learn about using Alpha and VDM sculpt brushes in Blender
  • Go from sketch to final 3D concept
  • 6 hours of narrated tutorial videos
  • 100+ hard surface sculpt brushes you can use!
ENROLL

Learn how to bring your designs into 3D

Making hard surface models can be very time consuming if you're always worrying about topology. With sculpting techniques, we can bring our ideas to life much faster. This is ideal when you want to create concept art in 3D. Thanks to special hard surface brushes, you can easily add detail (literally with one click). Are you ready to have some fun with 3D art?