Dragon Hut

We just had a new iteration over the smoothing tool. Now it really acts like sand-paper. It can dissolve an entire object if you apply it long enough. If you apply it just the right amount, it even outs surfaces to the point you like.


This is me sculpting in this video. I did not start with a detailed plan, just a vague idea of what I wanted to do. I knew it would be some kind of bony hut structure.

A few months ago while doing a stone golem I realized the sculpting toolset still needed some work. This new version of the smooth tool already makes a huge difference. I can feel now I am more limited by my imagination and skills than by the tools I'm using. This is a good thing.

Don't be square!

Minecraft gets many things right, but the top in my list is how easy it is to create. Nothing is simpler than laying out boxes. Since everything is square (even the cows), being limited to boxes does not feel bad at all.

If you are doing some sort of sandbox environment going beyond just boxes is not trivial. One possible approach is to do like Blockscape, where in addition to the classic box you now have a large repertoire of prefixed angular shapes. I do not like this approach as it makes the interface very complex and frustrating. It makes you forehead veins pop.

So I chose a different approach, where you still lay boxes the same as in Minecraft, but then you can go back and alter them. I saw that a single operation was enough to produce both curved and straight angled surfaces. If you applied it gently you would get curves. If you applied it more, it would straighten out.

Here you can see a round hole and a needle, both initially created as boxes. It only takes a few clicks to shift their shapes:

I think this is the right direction. Still it is not simple to implement. While I got this thing working, there are many issues to fix.

I leave you with a video, let me know what you think: