# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > 3D modeling (map elements and height maps) >  A free (and awesome) 3D tool : Sculptris

## RecklessEnthusiasm

For all the mapmakers out there who work in the third-D, Pixologic, the makers of Zbrush, have just released a free alpha version of a really intuitive 3D model sculpting program. I'd really recommend it!

Here is a sample of someone doing terrain in the program: 

http://www.sculptris.com/

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## tilt

very nice... looked very "drawish", which I like - but there was also no doubt about the guy knowing exactly what he was doing ... could be fun trying it, I like the idea of working with 3D like with clay  :Smile:

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## RecklessEnthusiasm

Yep, it is very similar to Zbrush (one of the big, industry-leading 3D sculpting tools) in that it feels like working with a solid hunk of material (clay), but Zbrush has a disconcerting number of options, bells whistles, doohickeys... This one just has a small number of tools that are pretty flexible. I downloaded it and whipped something up really quick--it is pretty much as easy as it looks, and intuitive (which is really important for someone as thick as me.)

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## tilt

i'm with you on that one ... although i do love many options, I prefer if I'm able to start out with only a few - an preferably without reading a manual  :Smile:

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## tilt

hmmmm... they don't mention requirements for the program ... and being on a mac - I'd love to see a version for that  :Smile:

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## Djekspek

very interesting, i have Sculptris installed for some time, but never thought about making terrain models with it (my mind-set was it being usefull only a character-design).. must give that a try. cheers!

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## ravells

I love the ease of texturing....it's pretty wow!

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## su_liam

I think I was underwhelmed by a much earlier version of this, but I'll have a look next time I boot Windows.

I love virtual clay, but I haven't had much luck finding free apps that work for me. This may be for the same reason that I can't get anything useful done with real clay either. For some reason, these programs require artistry.

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## Redrobes

We have had two threads about this app before. It was pretty cool when I tried it out last time. I cant really understand why its being bought by zbrush other than to eventually deprecate it out of the way... any other ideas about that ?

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## jtougas

WOW I went and downloaded this and am pretty amazed.. Now I spent about 3 minutes just fooling around and came up with this... I can see me having a LATE night getting the hang of it..  :Smile:

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## Midgardsormr

> We have had two threads about this app before. It was pretty cool when I tried it out last time. I cant really understand why its being bought by zbrush other than to eventually deprecate it out of the way... any other ideas about that ?


Well, if they were simply nervous about a free application competing with ZBrush, they'd have simply shut it down after the purchase, but given that the people who use ZBrush are more than willing to pay for technical support, that seems unlikely to me. 

Instead, they're developing it. So my guess is that it has some technology in it that they wanted to obtain. It looks like they might be planning to use it as a test bed for features that they're planning to eventually add to ZBrush. I just discovered Autodesk's Mudbox, which is essentially the same thing, a few months ago. If I'd known about that at the beginning of art school, I might have been more than an indifferent modeler. I'm planning to see what I can do with it over the next few months.

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## Redrobes

Zbrush is supposed to be the daddy of these type apps and this sculptris was emulating that but had this neat automatic face subdivision which I thought was cool at the time. That might have the been the reason. I found sculptris easy to use but its like a set of pens or paint, its only as good as the sculptor but then at least your not fighting with the software. Blender has this built in too and thats pretty easy to use as well. Spoilt for choice now.

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## Ajhacket

The software developer for Sculptris who came up with alot of the base sculpting algorithims went to work for pixologic.  Pixologic as a service to the open source community and probably with some prodding from the developer released it to the opensource community. Its actually the route I took to buying Zbrush 4 which is for good reasons a industry leading 3D sculpting package.

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## loogie

yeah, it's fairly common for a large industry leading company to look into OpenSource "side projects", it gets people interested in the genre, in many cases gets you "used to" a certian way of doing things, and gets the brand loyalty in there even when your not paying for anything... when/if you end up paying for a program, you're more likely to buy from them, cause your familiar with how they do things... it looks quite interesting.. i'm going to try it out when i get home

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## Hai-Etlik

> The software developer for Sculptris who came up with alot of the base sculpting algorithims went to work for pixologic.  Pixologic as a service to the open source community and probably with some prodding from the developer released it to the opensource community. Its actually the route I took to buying Zbrush 4 which is for good reasons a industry leading 3D sculpting package.


Are you sure about that? I don't see any indication of source code or an open license.  Wikipedia lists it as being proprietary.

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## Slylok

> Are you sure about that? I don't see any indication of source code or an open license.  Wikipedia lists it as being proprietary.


Its freeware not open source software. I prefer blender myself

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