Week 5

Granular Detail

Spotlight

Spotlight is ZBrush’s built-in image projection and reference tool. It allows you to place images directly onto the canvas and project them onto your model’s surface. Think of it as a movable projector that wraps visual information onto 3D geometry.

It serves two primary purposes: reference and projection. You can use it to line up anatomical landmarks while sculpting, or to project color and depth information for details like skin texture, pores, surface breakup, decals, or creature patterns. Spotlight is activated from the Texture palette after loading an image, and once enabled, a circular control dial lets you scale, rotate, fade, and position the image before projecting it onto your model.

Stroke Types

Stroke types control how a brush is applied to the surface. While the brush determines what kind of sculpting behavior occurs (Standard, Clay, Move, etc.), the Stroke setting determines how that brush is laid down across the model. Understanding stroke types gives you control over repetition, spacing, curves, and precision placement.

Below are the primary stroke types and what they do:

Dots

Continuous freehand stroke that follows your pen movement. Default for most sculpting.

DragRect

Applies the brush once inside a rectangular drag area. Ideal for stamping alphas with controlled scale and rotation.

FreeHand

Places evenly spaced brush samples along your stroke path for smoother, more consistent buildup.

Color Spray

Randomly scatters color variation while painting. Primarily used in Polypaint.

Spray

Scatters multiple brush instances randomly within the brush radius. Great for pores, texture, and surface breakup.

DragDot

A DragDot stroke allows you to drag your brush around, to place your sculpting or painting at a precise point. Only the area under the mouse when the drag ends is affected.

DragStamp

Places repeating alpha stamps under the cursor and can dynamically adjust the height of your alpha.

Morph Target

The Morph Brush allows you to selectively restore parts of your model back to a stored Morph Target. Instead of smoothing or undoing globally, it lets you “paint back” to an earlier saved state only where you brush.

To use it, you must first store a Morph Target in the Tool > Morph Target sub palette. After making sculpting changes, switching to the Morph Brush lets you brush over specific areas to revert them to that stored version. This makes it extremely useful for controlling detail, refining edges, softening overworked areas, or selectively removing sculpt changes without affecting the entire model.

In practice, the Morph Brush is often used to clean up texture projection, reduce excessive detail, restore planar surfaces, or create controlled transitions between high and low detail areas. It is a precision correction tool rather than a sculpting brush.

Smooth Peaks and Valleys

Smooth Peaks and Smooth Valleys are modifiers of the Smooth brush that allow you to control what gets smoothed on a surface.

Smooth Peaks

Smooths only the raised areas of a surface. High points are softened while recessed details remain largely intact. This is useful for knocking down noisy detail without flattening creases or cuts.

Smooth Valleys

Smooths only the recessed areas of a surface. Indentations and grooves are softened while raised forms stay sharp. This is helpful for cleaning up carved lines or deep wrinkles without losing surface definition.

These options are especially useful in high-detail creature work where you want selective refinement without destroying carefully sculpted forms.

FormSoft

The FormSoft Brush is good for adding and removing form on your models that already contain macro details. With subtle use and a low intensity setting, it can help retain your existing details.