gSculpt – procedural subdivision modeller

Last Updated on December 24, 2022

gSculpt is an open source, procedural subdivision modeller. It has a comprehensive set of polygon modelling tools, including most of those found in Wings 3D, and more.

Workflow and speed of use are important design goals in the development of gSculpt. Pre-selection highlighting throughout the program, and keyboard short cuts ensure that the workflow is fast and efficient, while providing access to a powerful procedural system which allows mistakes to be rectified easily.

Its procedural modelling system makes it an excellent choice for making modelling tutorials, as the steps required to build the model from the beginning are displayed to the user in a list. This list can be navigated easily, allowing a user to view the process one step at a time, at their own pace, while being able too look at the model from all angles as they go.

Features include:

• • Primitive objects: Box, Plane, Sphere, Cylinder, Cone, Torus, Tube, Draw face, Draw quad mesh, Group.
  • Mesh editing: vertex mode:
    • Pick select (choose with pre-selection highlighting).
    • Grow and shrink selection.
    • Move, scale, and rotate.
    • Move-normal (move in direction of surface normal).
    • Tweak (select and move combined into one operation).
    • Surface-tweak (like tweak, but constrains movement to the surface of the model, or the surface normal).
    • Template-tweak (like tweak, but constrains movement to the surface of the drawing plane and drawing templates (models in the background)).
    • Proportional tweak (tweak with falloff, has modes for move, move-normal, scale, rotate, and relax).
    • Flatten.
    • Expand.
    • Bevel.
    • Connect.
    • Weld.
    • Target weld.
    • Dissolve.
    • Crease (for subdivision).
    • Normal sharpness controls.
    • Deformations: shear, linear twist, radial twist, taper, shrink, dent, bend
  • Mesh editing: edge mode
    • Pick select (choose edges, edge loops, edge rings, or edge boundaries with pre-selection highlighting).
  • • Pick select edge ring path (picks the edges that lie across the shortest path across a mesh, with pre-selection highlighting).
  • • Pick select edge loop path (picks the edges that make up the shortest path across a mesh, with pre-selection highlighting).
  • • Grow and shrink selection.
  • • Grow selection to rings.
  • • Grow selection to loops.
  • • Grow selection to boundaries.
  • • Move, scale, and rotate.
  • • Move-normal (move in direction of surface normal).
  • • Tweak (select and move combined into one operation).
    • Surface-tweak (like tweak, but constrains movement to the surface of the model, or the surface normal).
  • • Slide.
  • • Flatten.
  • • Spin.
  • • Rewire.
  • • Expand.
  • • Extrude.
  • • Rift.
  • • Bevel.
  • • Connect (connect edges to one another across faces; user chooses cut point).
  • • Multiple-connect (connect edges to one another across faces, with multiple equally spaced cut points).
  • • Split (insert vertices into edges, user chooses position).
  • • Multiple-split (insert multiple equally spaced vertices).
  • • Cut (cut arbitrary shapes into a mesh).
  • • Multiple-cut (like multiple connect except that the user draws the path on the mesh).
  • • Bandsaw (cuts across the edge ring that the chosen edge is a member of, user chooses cut point).
  • • Multiple-bandsaw (cuts across the edge ring that the chosen edge is a member of, with multiple equally spaced cut points).
  • • Dissolve.
  • • Collapse.
  • • Weld.
  • • Bridge.
  • • Crease (for subdivision).
  • • Normal sharpness controls.
  • Mesh editing: face mode.
    • Pick select (choose with pre-selection highlighting).
    • Grow and shrink selection.
    • Move, scale, and rotate.
    • Move-normal (move in direction of surface normal).
    • Tweak (select and move combined into one operation).
    • Surface-tweak (like tweak, but constrains movement to the surface of the model, or the surface normal).
    • Flatten.
    • Extrude (in direction of surface normal).
    • Free-extrude (in any direction).
    • Inset.
    • Bevel.
    • Expand.
    • Dissolve.
    • Weld.
    • Tunnel.
    • Delete.
  • Mesh editing: body mode.
    • Subdivide (Catmull-clark or linear).
  • • Knife (cut across a mesh in a straight line).
  • • Draw face.
  • • Draw quad mesh.
  • • Mirror.
  • • Virtual mirror.
  • • Move, scale, and rotate.
  • • Deformations: shear, linear twist, radial twist, taper, shrink, dent, bend.
  • Group editing:
    • Deformations: shear, linear twist, radial twist, taper, shrink, dent, bend.
    • Merge contents (merges models in the group into a single model if possible).

Website: gsculpt.sourceforge.net
Support: Documentation
Developer: Geoffrey French
License: GNU GPL v2

gSculpt is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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