Getting Started >
About Mudbox

What is Mudbox?

Autodesk® Mudbox™ is the first advanced, high resolution, brush-based 3D sculpting and painting application built from the ground up to address the needs of the digital sculptors and texture artists. Designed by production artists for production artists working on demanding projects, Mudbox introduces new workflow paradigms and combines familiar concepts in a new and exciting way to offer a unique solution for high-end commercial modeling and painting.

Mudbox is quick to learn, easy to use and integrates well with existing production pipelines.

Who uses Mudbox?

Mudbox users include:

- Digital modelers working on demanding assets requiring flexibility, speed, and the highest level of detail and sculptural quality.
- Texture painters needing to create high quality displacement, normal, diffuse, specular, reflection, gloss or other kinds of texture maps for any 3D object.
- Traditional sculptors and engravers wishing to take advantage of the many benefits of working digitally without having to spend weeks learning a software application.
- Concept designers wanting to visualize ideas in 3D.

What can you do with Mudbox?

Mudbox is designed for manipulating digital surfaces in an organic manner. Models can be either imported from existing files or generated using one of the basic sculpt templates provided with Mudbox. Completed models can be exported from Mudbox to be lit and rendered in other 3D applications.

Otherwise, displacement and normal maps are generated from the high resolution Mudbox model and applied as a texture map on the original low resolution mesh in another 3D application.

Mudbox is great for:

Designing

- Start with a basic model template and explore dozens of different design directions.
- Import polygonal models from other 3D applications using the OBJ format or Autodesk’s FBX®file format.
- Import cameras and image planes from other 3D application using Autodesk’s FBX® file format.
- Use Mudbox's powerful 3D Layers to version your design ideas or to non-destructively combine different designs.
- Use Subdivision Levels to preserve superficial detailing while making broad changes to the gross forms underneath.
- Evaluate the design properly by working in true perspective. View the design through different lenses by adjusting the camera's field of view.
- Create multiple cameras or camera bookmarks to quickly jump to common viewpoints or areas of the model.
- Import models from other 3D applications such as Autodesk® Maya, Autodesk® 3ds Max, and Pixologic™ ZBrush® for sculpting in Mudbox using the .obj or .fbx file formats.
- Output a model that can be input to another application and rapid prototyped for client evaluation or passed directly downstream to other digital departments for rigging, shading, and testing.

Detailing

- Use layers to separate surface details (pores, veins, scars, etc.) for easy and non-destructive editing or to supply different map sets for different channels in the material.
- Use the Knife tool to slice through dense meshes creating crisp, clean lines.
- Sculpt all detail directly in 3D, avoiding 2D projection, using Mudbox's Stamps and Stencils for 3D sculpting.
- Use Mudbox's unique tangent based symmetry sculpting to detail both sides of a model posed in a natural (asymmetric) or client-approved character pose.

General sculpting

- Build up forms with control using Mudbox's falloff curve to accurately shape the tip of sculpt tool. Cut sharp wrinkles into the mesh with a single stroke.
- Import and create multiple objects within Mudbox. Manage them through a conventional Object List, selecting, hiding and locking whichever you please.
- Maximize your work space and keep your cursor over the model while working, by using Mudbox's conventional 3D camera controls and its useful selection feature.

Painting and texturing

- Apply paint directly to your 3D models in Mudbox. Mudbox produces a bitmap image behind the scenes that you can use as a file texture or image map when rendering in other 3D applications.
- Images can be projected onto a model using the Projection brush to apply its properties (graphics, decals, and so on) to the model using either a brush stamp or stencil.
- Models can be painted in a variety of resolutions and color bit depths depending on your requirements.
- Paint can be applied to produce a textured appearance using a bump map.
- Paint layers can be reordered above or below each other.
- Paint layers can be duplicated and dragged to other paint channels. For example, a diffuse paint layer can be dragged into the bump paint channel to create a perfectly registered bump map from your paint map.
- High resolution images can be painted on models with UVs in tile spaces outside the 0 to 1 range. This lets you spread the UVs for a model across multiple high resolution image maps.
- View your 2D painted bitmap images in relation to the UV texture coordinates for the model using the UV View.
- Create or edit textures using Adobe® Photoshop® and move your textures between Mudbox and Photoshop in a seamless workflow.
- Export your paint layers with your model for use within Autodesk® Maya® using the Autodesk®FBX® format.

Presentation

- Work interactively with real-time shadows, lighting, and shading effects displayed in the 3D environment (HDRI-lighting supported).
- Apply and edit material properties such as color, reflectivity, gloss and bump, and use images as texture maps similar to other 3D applications (CgFX materials specification supported on qualified graphics cards).
- Apply real-time viewport effects such as ambient occlusion, depth of field, and non-photorealistic effects that remain displayed even while the model is being edited, or dollied, tracked, and tumbled within the 3D View.
- Produce normal maps directly from objects placed in the 3D View for use as simple texture maps without having to extract them.
- Produce depth maps based on the sculpted items within the 3D View that can be used as stamps, stencils, or displacement maps within Mudbox.
- Save a high resolution image of your working view for use with other applications and presentations.