Sculpting layers

People always make reference to zbrush but actually in mudbox layer system implemented much better. In real production with deadlines and feedbacks using blender as sculpting tool almost impossible, layers should exist in blender.

it could work something like this

The idea sounds cool, but I think a lot more thought needs to be put into how exactly it would work. Would it be as simple as adding a second Multi-resolution modifier to the mesh and that modifier would serve as the layer? Or should layers be an additional feature built-in to the existing Multires modifier? Or should sculpt layers be a modifier of their own?

Of course, you could try to think of ways this might work outside of the modifier system, but we have it and (for the time being), it's stack-based. Perhaps that can be taken advantage of.

P.S. mock-up images are a big help!

Sculpt layers are easily one of my top desires for Blender to implement (after fixing multires).

Off the top of my head I think this would be something that would go inside of the multires modifier instead of being its own modifier because in either scenario (whether it's part of multires or its own separate modifier) it would have to synchronize with multires because you might have sculpt layers where you were sculpting on subdivision level 1, and others on level 2, or 3, 4, etc. and it seems like it would be harder to do that if layers were external to multires and had to synchronize with it. Simpler to just build it into multires itself. But I'm no programmer so I don't know which of those is actually easier to do.

With that being said, the features I would expect are thus:

• Each layer has its own visibility on/off toggle for whether its effects are active or not.
• Each layer has its own lock toggle to prevent accidental sculpting on that layer.
• Each layer can be given its own name.
• Each layer has its own "Intensity" which is similar to the "Opacity" in image editing software like Photoshop except instead of being restricted to 0-100% this intensity can be "overdriven" to values beyond 100 (so I can change a given layer's strength to 200% or even more if I'm not satisfied with how strong the sculpting was) or potentially even "underdriven" into negative % values to invert the layer (things that were built up are now concave, and vice versa).
• Each layer is attached to a specific subdivision level.
• An unlimited number of layers can be applied to each subdivision level, limited only by whether the user's computer can handle it or not.
• Layers can be deleted.

The beautiful thing about being able to work with sculpt layers is that it is a semi non-destructive workflow. You can turn layers on and off at will and experiment with different strokes, textures, weights, and so on, or you can selectively modify or erase details while preserving others, all without having to make destructive changes to your sculpt to try something different. This gives HUGE flexibility. It is impossible to overstate just how flexible this is. Especially if you can change the layer intensity; it lets you retroactively change the strength of your sculpting to make it stronger, or weaker. All of this is great for variations, iteration, and change feedback from supervisors.

Open-ended ideas/questions:

• Layers can be grouped?
• Layer merging/collapsing/flattening? If you have two or more layers on a given subdivision level you can destructively merge them into a single layer?
• Layer splitting? Mask an area on a particular layer and split that sculpt data into its own layer (or inverse; split the non-masked data while preserving the masked part in the current layer)?
• If we have a layer system, would it make any sense to then tie masks to layers? Would it be useful for each layer to have its own mask "slot" that is independent of other layers and masks? Use case: You have layer A and B. You mask part of the mesh on layer A and do some work. Then you switch to layer B, which is not masked, do some work, then switch back to A again and A still has the mask that you made earlier (because you never cleared the mask) so you can resume where you left off on A. Or maybe one mask slot per layer plus one global mask? (Harder to design obvious UI and flow for that, though.)
• Since layer data can nondestructively be turned off and on at will it makes me wonder if there are potential ways to tie into or extend this functionality like maybe applying modifiers per layer? This may be way out of scope but the thought I had was something like if you sculpted something on a layer but you weren't using symmetry would the nondestructive nature allow you to, say, take the layer data and duplicate it across a specified axis (or axes) to make things symmetric?

Hey guys this would turn blender into god mode With the recent improvements to Sculpt, Blender has turned into a real alternative for sculpting, the one thing missing is layers for your sculpt I have attached an image to give some idea of how it could potentially work? For example i can use an alpha on one layer then use the slider to tone down the strength, while it not affecting the other layers alpha

![Image][1] ⋮ [1]: ibb.co/PZqxcXH

A bit of an old conversation, but I don't see how the suggestions already given (with examples from other programs) wouldn't be good enough for devs to understand the concept.

Nevertheless, sculpt layers in Blender would probably work like shapekeys that not only work on the base mesh, and their effect would be on a single multires modifier.

I imagine the interface being really simple (no need to complicate it, the code by itself will be complicated enough, I wonder if this will require an entire rewrite. I hope not.), the order on the stack wouldn't affect anything and you'd be able to change the intensity that each layer affects the base layer).

The functionality is pretty similar, not to say identical to shapekeys, the problem with shapekeys is that they're slow as hell and don't support multiresolution.

I think this youtube.com/watch video well explain how sculpt layers must work...this feature in zbrush since 3.0 (i still have video with feature Preview of sculpt layers in It alleged zbrush 2.5 that never came i guess - which (video) dated from 8 aug 2006 cloud.mail.ru/public/NGBQ/aExGiqM2Z - i mean sculpted layers in zbrush almost 10 years - it would be nice to have it in blender too)

Any updates on this?

Would be a very welcome feature!

Hi! Other things i have to say, what about Polygroups like in Zbrush? can we expect something like this in Blender?

How about something like this: rightclickselect.com/p/sculpting/Hdbbbc/shape-keys-for-multi-resolution-modifier It would (partially) solve the problem of layers.

cool idea but what's about Dynatopo? Do you think, the layers should get subdivided individually, or would the layers, which aren't activated, just be subdivided smooth.