Brush Settings

Each mode and brush has unique brush settings. But there is also a lot of overlap or similar settings. This page explains general and mode specific settings that are used across various brushes in more detail.

General

Radius

This option controls the size of the brush, measured in pixels. F allows you to change the brush size interactively by dragging the mouse from left to right and then LMB to accept. Meanwhile the texture of the brush will be visible inside the circle. You can also enter the size numerically with the number keys.

Size Pressure: Brush size can be affected by enabling the pressure sensitivity icon, if you are using a Graphics Tablet.
Use Unified Radius: Use the same brush Radius across all brushes.

Radius Unit Sculpt Mode

Controls how the brush Radius is measured.

View: The Radius is measured based on how the cursor appears on the monitor i.e. “screen space”.
Scene: The Radius is measured based on real world units. This means that the brush radius stays consistent, independently from zooming in and out in the viewport. The unit type and scaling can be configured in the Scene Units.

Strength

For painting brushes the Strength defines the maximum effect of each brush stroke. For example, higher values cause a Paint brush to give each stroke a higher opacity. The opacity is never stronger than the set Strength, no matter how often the same surface is painted during the same stroke.

For sculpting brushes on the other hand the Strength relates to how strong each step of the stroke is, resulting in a slower/faster buildup towards the full brush effect during the stroke.

You can change the brush strength interactively by pressing Shift-F and then moving the brush and then LMB. You can also enter the strength numerically with the number keys.

Strength Pressure: Brush strength can be affected by enabling the pressure sensitivity icon, if a supported tablet is being used.
Use Unified Strength: Use the same brush Strength across all brushes.

Blend

Set the way the color or value is applied over the targeted Color Attribute, Vertex Group or Image Texture. See Color Blend Modes.

Add Alpha: makes the image more opaque where painted.
Erase Alpha: makes the image transparent where painted, allowing background colors and lower-level textures to show through. As you “paint”, the false checkerboard background will be revealed. Using a tablet pen’s eraser end will toggle on this mode.

Tip

In order to see the effects of the Erase and Add Alpha mix modes in the Image Editor, the Display Channels must be set to Color & Alpha or Alpha. Transparent (no alpha) areas will then show a checkered background.

Weight Weight Paint

The weight value that is applied to the vertex group.

Use Ctrl-LMB to sample the weight value of clicked vertex. Shift-LMB lets you select the group from which to sample from.

Direction Ctrl Sculpt Mode: Brush direction toggle, Add raises geometry towards the brush, Subtract lowers geometry away from the brush. This setting can be toggled with Ctrl while sculpting.

Normal Radius Sculpt Mode: Determines the ratio of how much the brush radius is used to sample the normal direction of the sculpt plane of the brush. For example, a smaller Normal Radius will lead to drastic changes in the brush orientation, like for following the contours of hard surface meshes more closely. A large Normal Radius will lead to smoother changes in orientation, like for building overall forms on organic sculptures.

Area Radius: The ratio between the brush radius and the radius that is going to be used to sample the area plane depth.

Hardness Sculpt Mode: How close the brush falloff starts from the edge of the brush.

Tip Roundness: The factor to control how round the brush is. A value of zero will make the brush square. Note, the Brush Falloff is only applied to the rounded portions of the brush.

Auto-smooth Sculpt Mode: Sets the amount of smoothing to be applied to each stroke.

Topology Rake Sculpt Mode

The higher this setting is set, the more Dyntopo aligns mesh edges to the brush direction while tessellating the surface. This generates cleaner edge flow to help define sharp features. Topology Rake can have a severe performance impact so it works best on low-poly meshes.

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Normal Weight Ctrl Sculpt Mode

Constrains brush movement along the surface normal. Especially useful with the Grab brush, can be temporarily enabled by holding Ctrl. E.g. Grab brush can be used to push a depression (hole) into the mesh when Normal Weight is set.

Applies to Grab and Snake Hook brushes.

Plane Offset Sculpt Mode

Offset for planar brushes (Clay, Fill, Flatten, Scrape), shifts the plane that is found by averaging the faces above or below.

Plane Trim Sculpt Mode

Ability to limit the distance that planar brushes act. If trim is enabled vertices that are further away from the offset plane than the trim distance are ignored during sculpting.

Pinch/Magnify Sculpt Mode: Pushes the mesh towards/away from the brush center during the stroke.

Deformation Target

How the deformation of the brush will affect the object.

Geometry: Deform the geometry directly.
Cloth Simulation: Deform the mesh while a cloth simulation is applied to it at the same time.

Advanced

Accumulate: Causes stroke dabs to accumulate on top of each other.
Front Faces Only: When enabled, the brush only affects vertices that are facing the viewer.
Affect Alpha 2D Painting Only: When this is disabled, it prevents changes to the alpha channel while painting (Only in 3D Viewport).
Anti-Aliasing 2D Painting Only: Toggles Anti-Aliasing around the brush, this is useful if you are working with pixel art or low resolution textures.

Auto-Masking Sculpt Mode: The auto-masking toggles in the brush settings are the same as the sculpt mode auto-masking settings. The difference is that these toggles can be customized per brush to create specific brush behaviors.

Color Picker

Color

The color of the brush. See Color Picker.

Press S on any part of the image to sample that color and set it as the brush color. Hold Ctrl while painting to temporally paint with the secondary color.

Swap Colors (cycle icon) X: Swaps the primary and secondary colors.
Use Unified Color: Use the same brush color across all brushes.

Note

Note that Vertex Paint works in sRGB space, and the RGB representation of the same colors will be different between the paint tools and the materials that are in linear space.

Gradient

A gradient can be used as a color source.

Gradient Colors

The Color Ramp Widget to define the gradient colors.

Mode

Pressure: Will choose a color from the color ramp according to the stylus pressure.
Clamp: Will alter the color along the stroke and as specified by Gradient Spacing option. With Clamp it uses the last color of the color ramp after the specified gradient.
Repeat: Similar to Clamp. After the last color it resets the color to the first color in the color ramp and repeats the pattern.

Color Palette

Color Palettes are a way of storing a brush’s color so that it can be used at a later time. This is useful when working with several colors at once.

Palette: A Data-Block Menu to select a palette.
New +: Adds the current brush’s primary Color to the palette.
Delete -: Removes the currently selected color from the palette.
Move (up/down arrow icon): Moves the selected color up/down one position.
Sort: Sort Colors by Hue, Saturation, Value, Luminance.
Color List: Each color that belongs to the palette is presented in a list. Clicking on a color will change the brush’s primary Color to that color.