Did you know you can make your own sculpting brushes in Blender?
In this Blender tutorial I will show you how to use the GrabDoc addon to easily make your own alphas for sculpting brushes in Blender.
Introduction
I have already made an object that I will be using to teach you how to easily make sculpting alphas
This object was made using a cube and an imported SVG
I will be using the addon called GrabDoc
Making the Alpha
The important thing to remember is that the object must be above the grid in order to render the objects correctly
I will split the viewport and open the camera view – using zero on the numpad
I clear the rotation and location of the camera using ALT + R and ALT + G
Under the output properties tab I change the resolution to 1000 x 1000
I open the GrabDoc addon and click on “setup scene”
I turn off everything in the addon except the height preview
I move the camera up along the Z-Axis until I see the object – at which point I can scale it to fit the camera view
When I click on “height map” I will see a preview of the alpha
The black areas will be the flat parts of this alpha but if I had sculpted a crack for example, the black areas would be extruded inward
The white areas will be extruded outward
If the alpha does not look right and you need to make changes, just click on “leave map preview” and you can then make any needed changes
I can now give it a name and use a 16-bit PNG for the format
I can also now tell Blender where I want to export the alpha to using the “export path” option
I then use the “export plane as FBX” option and click on “export height”
Using the Alpha
I will use the default draw brush for my saved alpha
Under the active tool tab, I click on the “add brush” icon and rename the brush
Under the texture panel, I click on “new”
Under the texture tab, I open the alpha
Back on the active tool tab, I change the mapping to view plane (this will depend upon your alpha)
For the stroke, I will use “anchored” which will allow me to click and drag
Now I can click-and-drag from the center and move my mouse to straighten the alpha
Notice however, if I go into side-view, there is a pronounced bend to the brush
To prevent this, I will change the sample bias to -1.75 – again, this will depend upon your alpha