Whether you are a beginner in the world of 3D design, or you are a professional with a lot of experience, at some point you have thought about giving Digital Sculpting a try. More and more people are attracted to this world full of creativity, art and job opportunities. 3D sculpting is now an integral part of movies, games, digital art, education, industrial and product design, 3D printing and much more. What’s even cooler about this world is that it is truly open to everyone. Everyone can dive into digital sculpting even with a zero budget. In this article we will analyze the areas of use of digital sculpting softwares and we will list some of the best softwares currently in use.

What is 3D Digital Sculpting

Digital sculpting is a 3d design methodology which is opposed to the classic 3d modeling.
The first difference between the two approaches is the number of polygons treated, which is much higher when it comes to digital sculpture. Digital sculpting softwares allow you to easily work on models with millions of polygons, this would be almost impossible with normal 3D modeling.
The second fundamental difference, partly deriving from the first, is that while in 3D modeling we work on polygons, edges and vertices, in digital sculpture we process portions of meshes that subtend thousands of vertices.
These characteristics lead directly to the third fundamental difference and that is the type of models generated. While 3D modeling may be advisable when dealing with human-generated products, digital sculpting is certainly the best approach to creating organic models.

Digital Sculpting softwares

Now that we know a little more about digital sculpting, let’s see which are the best software on the market today.
We are going to describe these software using some simple metrics such as pricing and learning curve. In addition we will also go to see the main areas of use of each one of them.

Zbrush

When it comes to 3D sculpture, it is impossible not to mention ZBrush by Maxon (originally created by Pixologic).
The software was presented in 1999 at SIGGRAPH. The demo version, 1.55, was released in 2003.
This software is certainly the best currently on the market, with years of experience behind it and expressly dedicated to digital sculpture.

Pricing

ZBrush provides a free trial version with all active features. So if you want to learn how to use it, if you want to see if you are able to create unique models or you are simply curious to check what features it has, you can do it at no cost. The only drawback is that the models generated with the free version cannot be used for commercial purposes.

The second option offered is ZBrushCore. This version contains all the basic software features needed for sculpting and painting. But some important features are missing such as UV mapping.
It comes with truly affordable pricing plans and if you are a single user you can have the perpetual license for just $ 179.95.

Finally we have the complete package with all the features of ZBrush also offered with various pricing plans. You can get the perpetual single user license for just $ 895.00.

If you are already using other 3D softwares you can understand how low the price of ZBrush is.

Learning Curve

There is a reason why ZBrush is considered such a powerful piece of software, the motivation lies in its countless features.
Learning to use all the tools that ZBrush makes available to the user could take a very long time.
Starting to work with basic functionalities and being able to model even complex objects or characters has instead a fast learning curve.
For those who start from scratch, our advice is to rely on the countless tutorials on the internet, persevere in daily practice and define a basic workflow.
Once you have become familiar with the basic tools, increasing your skills through the use of new features will be much easier.

Main areas of use

Zbrush is used by many companies all over the World with varoius purpose:

• Movies and VFX
• Video Games
• Illustration
• Advertising
• 3D Printing
• Automotive Design
• Jewelry Design
• Education

The following is a a non-exhaustive list of movies where Zbrush played a key role: “Avatar”, “The Incredible Hulk”, “The Avengers”, “The Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films, “Tron”, “Star Trek Into Darkness”, “Iron Man”, “Pacifc Rim”, “The Amazing Spiderman”, the Chronicles of Narnia series, the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

Zbrush was also involved in the creation of many Video Games such as: “The Last of Us”, “Gears of War”, “God of War” or “Assassins Creed”

For more informations you can check the following link.

Mudbox

Mudbox was created in 2001 by Skymatter company and first used as a complete product on the 2005 film King Kong. The beta release dates back to 2006, while the release 1 is from 2007, during the same year Skymatter was acquired by Autodesk.

Pricing

Mudbox offers a free 30-day trial version with which you are free to test the software at no cost. If you are satisfied, at a very reasonable price, you can choose one of the paid plans that include a monthly, an annual or finally a three-year subscription. The monthly subscription can be choosen for just 10$, which is vey reasonable.

Learning Curve

If you are looking for the software with the fastest learning curve Mudbox can be your best choise. Indeed Mudbox offers a very standard and userfriendly UI and if you have already worked with other Autodesk softwares such as Maya or 3ds Max, you will have no difficulty.
This means that your learning time will only be dedicated to digital sculpting and you will not have to waste time learning how to navigate the software.

Main areas of use

Even though it is a great piece of software at affordable prices, the spread of Mudbox is much lower than that of ZBrush. Due to its ease of use and speed of learning, the main area in which this software is used is in education. Mudbox is also used in the making of films, games and concepts.

Blender

Blender is a free opensource multipurpose 3D software.

Originally born in 1994 as an internal application of NeoGeo, Blender 1.0 was released in 1995. The first release under the GNU license, however, dates back to 2002. The history of this software is really interesting and if you want to know something more about it you can consult the following link.

The first versions of Blender were characterized by a not really userfriendly interface. Over the years, however, the software has evolved exponentially, improving in every aspect and above all by incorporating an infinite number of features.

With the 2.8 release in 2019 Blender has made great strides with a drastic overhaul of the user interface and, with regard to digital sculpture, introducing new remeshing options.

Even if Blender is an exceptional software, you must remember that it is not expressly dedicated to digital sculpting and obtaining the same results as a dedicated software like ZBrush could require much more effort or even be impossible.

Pricing

Blender is absolutely free and can also be used for commercial purposes. If you have a zero budget and still want to try to create commercial products, this might be the right solution for you.

Learning Curve

We can absolutely say that what made Blender’s learning curve steep is now about the past.
This also applies to features related to digital sculpture.
If you are starting from scratch, as with any other software, you will have to keep a constant commitment and you will be able to see significant improvements after a few weeks.

Main areas of use

Some famous brands are already using Blender and many other are switching to it as their primary software. Thanks to its development and rapid spread to users all over the world, Blender has become very competitive with respect to other paid softwares. The current main uses are for game development, movies and vfx.

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