how do I sculpt models without deforming them?

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

I'm trying to set up shapekeys but the problem is as I use grab to move and pose the model I noticed it deforms way too much. Yet there are people who can do these things without it losing too much of it's shape.

Is there a way to move the mesh without it losing it's shape so much?

[Mittens]

press O for proportional editing, it moves the surrounding vertices with the selected one

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Mittens:

press O for proportional editing, it moves the surrounding vertices with the selected one

is that in sculpt mode? that's what ive been using. O isnt doing anything

[Mittens]

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

Originally posted by Mittens:

press O for proportional editing, it moves the surrounding vertices with the selected one

is that in sculpt mode? that's what ive been using. O isnt doing anything

gotta be edit mode for the option to show. it's a little circle at the top

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Mittens:

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

is that in sculpt mode? that's what ive been using. O isnt doing anything

gotta be edit mode for the option to show. it's a little circle at the top

so you dont need to be in sculpt mode to make shapekeys?

[Mittens]

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

Originally posted by Mittens:

gotta be edit mode for the option to show. it's a little circle at the top

so you dont need to be in sculpt mode to make shapekeys?

nah, it's just down to preference really

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Mittens:

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

so you dont need to be in sculpt mode to make shapekeys?

nah, it's just down to preference really

is proportional editing just a big circle and whatever is in the circle moves?

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Mittens:

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

so you dont need to be in sculpt mode to make shapekeys?

nah, it's just down to preference really

oh I see what it does. It moves the entire thing.

That's not what im trying to do. Im trying to mold and move it. Im making expressions

[Urn Sudden]

It's dependent on scale (Labeled proportional size, under proportional editing falloff default 1m)

If you're having trouble scaling down the interval with prop editing you can scale the model up so the interval moves fewer vertices, and/or hold shift while adjusting to make micro-adjustments to the proportional size number.

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Urn Sudden:

It's dependent on scale (Labeled proportional size, under proportional editing falloff default 1m)

If you're having trouble scaling down the interval with prop editing you can scale the model up so the interval moves fewer vertices, and/or hold shift while adjusting to make micro-adjustments to the proportional size number.

well im doing facial expressions. So im moving an eyebrow around and its lumpy, not straight and some parts deformed. I want to fix that, position it for the shapekey without it losing its shape

it's hard and tedious moving one vert at a time trying to fix it

[Urn Sudden]

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

Originally posted by Urn Sudden:

It's dependent on scale (Labeled proportional size, under proportional editing falloff default 1m)

If you're having trouble scaling down the interval with prop editing you can scale the model up so the interval moves fewer vertices, and/or hold shift while adjusting to make micro-adjustments to the proportional size number.

well im doing facial expressions. So im moving an eyebrow around and its lumpy, not straight and some parts deformed. I want to fix that, position it for the shapekey without it losing its shape

it's hard and tedious moving one vert at a time trying to fix it

Oh, yeah I was expanding on Mittens' suggestion to use proportional editing, it shouldn't be moving the whole thing, if it is you need to scale down the "proportional scale" slider under the tab labeled "proportional scale falloff" until it's moving the number of vertices you want. You were the guy doing the DBZ rig a while back, right?

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Urn Sudden:

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

well im doing facial expressions. So im moving an eyebrow around and its lumpy, not straight and some parts deformed. I want to fix that, position it for the shapekey without it losing its shape

it's hard and tedious moving one vert at a time trying to fix it

Oh, yeah I was expanding on Mittens' suggestion to use proportional editing, it shouldn't be moving the whole thing, if it is you need to scale down the "proportional scale" slider under the tab labeled "proportional scale falloff" until it's moving the number of vertices you want. You were the guy doing the DBZ rig a while back, right?

yes actually. The eyebrows are a separate mesh and im posing it to be accurate as possible so they got to curve etc etc.

I gave up trying to rig it so I resorted to doing shapekeys which is something I hoped I never had to do. It's working out but some parts are giving me trouble. I also hate how it deforms. Selecting the little vertices on the three bars at the end is a huge pain.

https://imgur.com/zvFsiN8

https://imgur.com/UkcpO2w

I want to be able to move the mesh around without it deforming too much cause having to move each individual vert to try and fix this has been a huge chorge. I have to constantly move the camera to different angles just to move them in a direction to make it level and less lumpy. Its a huge pain and I wish I can use arrows to move it so I dont need to constantly change angles to get them to move in the direction I want

But sometimes they wont even move which is extremely annoying. I just want to make it keep its original shape from the default pose.

[Mittens]

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

Originally posted by Mittens:

nah, it's just down to preference really

oh I see what it does. It moves the entire thing.

That's not what im trying to do. Im trying to mold and move it. Im making expressions

hey sorry, was asleep. while everything is moving around, scroll up with the mouse wheel and you'll shrink the radius. you'll eventually see a circle that surrounds your selected vertex. it affects the faces inside the circle, it's just covering the entire model right now

[Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa)]

Originally posted by Mittens:

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

oh I see what it does. It moves the entire thing.

That's not what im trying to do. Im trying to mold and move it. Im making expressions

hey sorry, was asleep. while everything is moving around, scroll up with the mouse wheel and you'll shrink the radius. you'll eventually see a circle that surrounds your selected vertex. it affects the faces inside the circle, it's just covering the entire model right now

I know about the circle. That's not the problem. Its moving them properly.

yeah its almost 4:30 so ill be going to bed soon and will pick this back up later

[Urn Sudden]

Originally posted by Sir donks alot (rip my grandpa):

Originally posted by Urn Sudden:

Oh, yeah I was expanding on Mittens' suggestion to use proportional editing, it shouldn't be moving the whole thing, if it is you need to scale down the "proportional scale" slider under the tab labeled "proportional scale falloff" until it's moving the number of vertices you want. You were the guy doing the DBZ rig a while back, right?

yes actually. The eyebrows are a separate mesh and im posing it to be accurate as possible so they got to curve etc etc.

I gave up trying to rig it so I resorted to doing shapekeys which is something I hoped I never had to do. It's working out but some parts are giving me trouble. I also hate how it deforms. Selecting the little vertices on the three bars at the end is a huge pain.

https://imgur.com/zvFsiN8

https://imgur.com/UkcpO2w

I want to be able to move the mesh around without it deforming too much cause having to move each individual vert to try and fix this has been a huge chorge. I have to constantly move the camera to different angles just to move them in a direction to make it level and less lumpy. Its a huge pain and I wish I can use arrows to move it so I dont need to constantly change angles to get them to move in the direction I want

But sometimes they wont even move which is extremely annoying. I just want to make it keep its original shape from the default pose.

Not much can be done about automatically preserving its original shape/volume, but I do know the shrinkwrap modifier works, even in sculpt/edit mode so that'll prevent you having to go in and manually adjust lumpiness in the y and z values. If you're in 4.3, I'd suggest subdividing the brow in edit mode if you're getting jagged edges, adding a shrink wrap modifier with the target being the head mesh, adjusting the offset to something like .5 to prevent clipping, leaving the modifier active, going back into sculpt mode and using the "2d grab" brush, adjusting the scale so you grab all the verts per chunk of eyebrow in the z direction (preserving volume to some degree) and shaping it that way. Doesn't have the same intuitive flexibility in animation a fine-tuned armature does (which would be way more tedious than what youve got going on right now) and if there's clipping not much can be done with that setup aside from adjusting the shrinkwrap offset, or applying it and manually pulling the verts out of the head mesh but that defeats the purpose of using it in the first place.

There's also "snap to nearest surface" in edit mode, but that tends to pull the faces into the target mesh. If you were to go that route you could get roughly the shape you want in the brows shape key, disable snapping, Ctrl+a, g, y key to pull them all out of your model along the y axis and get similar results to the shrinkwrap mod with a bit more flexibility. That's all the suggestions I have at my current skill level though, best of luck!

[Urn Sudden]

UPD8. Sorry about run-on sentence, was responding on mobile.
Would NOT recommend shrinkwrap, it gives this weird vertex-walking effect and some crazy deformation. If proportional editing isn't working for your purposes, I'd suggest putting a lattice around the brow mesh adding U resolution as needed, and adding a lattice-deform modifier to it. Did a real quick mockup--

https://imgur.com/a/qGX0vje

Note, the shape key is attached to the lattice and not the mesh. Not sure if you could store vertex positions in the brow's shape key without the lattice deform taking over when activating it though, so if you wanna experiment on that front you can, otherwise keying the lattice works pretty good I think.