Mudbox® 3D digital painting and sculpting software

---

Mudbox purchase options include flexible subscription terms to fit your needs.

---

Mudbox® digital painting and sculpting software provides 3D artists with an intuitive and tactile toolset for creating and modifying 3D geometry and textures.

If you’re a 3D artist looking for a way to express your creativity, Mudbox can be a great solution. This 3D painting and sculpting software is easy to use and packed with all kinds of tools and features that will let you create and give life to 3D objects.

Who Is It For?

This software is suitable for everyone who needs a fairly simple way to create high-quality 3D objects. You don’t have to be a technical person to understand how this one works. It’s pretty straightforward and intuitive, so you can let your creativity do most of the work.
So if you’re more of an artistic type that works on projects that are less parametric and more creative and free, Mudbox might be for you. Moreover, if you’re a student looking to learn 3D design, this software can be a great starting place.

 

---

Features and Benefits

Mudbox lets you digitally sculpt and paint objects basically the same way you would do it in real life. It offers a wide range of features that make sure you can express yourself to the fullest extent. Let’s go over some of the most important ones.

Model Preparation Tools

Mudbox uses polygon-based models that you can manipulate freely. Components of polygons are vertices, edges, and faces. When many separate polygons are combined in a polygon mesh, you get a polygonal model that you can sculpt to you will.
Mudbox gives you an option to either choose one of the pre-made meshes or create your own from scratch. When creating you own, you can customize anything from the number of sides each polygon has (four being the recommended number), the shape and size of polygon faces, and all the way to polygon topology.
Pre-made models come in some basic shapes with their own UV coordinates, which you will need for texture painting and extraction.

Sculpting Tools

The sculpting process is very simple and there are a lot of ways to do it, thanks to a wide variety of tools available. Just pick your tool and go over a region of the model. By doing this you reposition vertices, which then repositions the polygonal faces.

Subdivision Level

For more detailed sculpting, Mudbox lets you use a subdivision tool to increase the polygon number. This way you can create multiple subdivision levels and switch between them to get a more precise object.

Sculpt Layers

You can also create different sculpt layers that you can combine. You can sculpt freely on these layers without affecting the base mesh. This lets you try out different designs, blend different versions of an object, and explore all kinds of different options.

Symmetry Tools

Symmetry tools let you sculpt on both sides at the same time, with high detail. There are two ways to sculpt symmetrically. Tool symmetry mirrors the changes across the symmetry axis in real time. Layer symmetry lets you sculpt one layer and then reflect the features across the axis.
You can also create one half of a model and then duplicate it, which creates a typologically symmetrical model, so you get a defined center line edge.

Paint Modes

Other than sculpting, this is where Mudbox lets you express your creativity in the best possible way. It offers two main painting options: 3D painting and Stencil projection.
With 3D painting, you can use the paint brush to directly apply the paint to your model. Mudbox saves this image in 2D, letting you export the paint layers.
Stencil projection uses a 2D stencil image to let you project paint onto the model. You can also create all kinds of effects using just the paintbrush with stamps and stencils.

Paint Layers

While painting on a model, you apply the paint to a paint layer. You create 2D bitmap images that you can easily keep track of. These layers let you paint in all kinds of different ways, such as reflection, gloss, or bump values.
As an added bonus, the canvas size doesn’t need to be consistent, which means you can paint in different resolutions. This is useful if you want the material to use less texture memory.

Exporting Layers to Photoshop

Mudbox lets you transfer paint layers to Adobe Photoshop, which you can use to further manipulate it. You can export a single layer, paint channels with multiple layers, and even create an entire model image. After you’re done with the changes, you can simply import the file back into Mudbox.

Visual Effects

You can use the Viewport filters to add different visual effects to your model. These filters enhance the material and your sculptures, and can help create simulations of different environments to show you how the sculpture will be rendered in other applications.

Multi-touch Workflows

This technology allows artists to interact with Mudbox using a multi-touch tablet. It supports different multi-touch tablets and devices and lets you sculpt and paint intuitively. You can manipulate your model and tool setting using your fingers or a stylus, which can add a lot of convenience and precision to you sculpting and painting.

System Requirements

A great thing about Mudbox is that it’s compatible with pretty much every modern computer, so you don’t have to worry about it not being compatible with yours. Here are the software and hardware requirements:
Operating System:

• Microsoft Windows 7 (SP1) or Windows 10 Professional
• Apple Mac OS X 10.11.x and 10.12.x
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 and 7.2 WS (multi-user license needed)
• CentOS 6.5 and 7.2 (multi-user license needed)

Web Browser:

• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox

Hardware:

• Multi-core 64-bit Intel or AMD processor
• Graphics card: Click here for the updated list
• 4 GB of RAM (8 or more recommended)
• 1 GB of free disk space

Why Should You Buy Mudbox?

You can now understand why Mudbox is popular among 3D artists and creative individuals. It offers you all the freedom you need to easily create stunning 3D objects. Thanks to the user-friendly interface and wide variety of features, the only limit is your imagination.

If you’re a student, Autodesk offers you a free Mudbox subscription for three years. So in case you want to start learning digital sculpting or painting, this software can be a good choice.

Considering all the possibilities it offers, it’s safe to say that Mudbox is a very affordable solution. It has all the features that some of the more expensive solutions out there offer and gives you everything that a 3D artist needs.

When you subscribe, you get unlimited access to all updates and previous versions of this software, so you always have the latest innovations that Autodesk has to offer.

You can also access the software wherever you are. Aside from the license you get for you home computer, you also get Global Travel Rights, which allow you to take Mudbox with you and use it in different countries.

An Autodesk Account will let you share your projects in both 2D and 3D and get feedback on it. You can also use it to decide who gets access to your work, so you can have your team in one place.

To make sure your work is safe, Autodesk offers you a way to securely store all your data on their servers, so you won’t have to worry about you assets falling into the wrong hands.

 

---