Changelog

Detail meshes, studio tools, hair, and sculpting from photographs.

• NewDetail meshes: Add detail turns an object into a mesh you subdivide and sculpt, for scales, pores and wrinkles. Step down a level for broad changes; Back to clay makes it clay again, paint included.
• NewThe triangle ceiling for detail meshes follows your memory limit, from 24 million up to 48 million.
• NewNoise brush, and three stroke modes: Freehand, Drag (one dab, sized and turned by the drag) and Curve.
• NewTrim, Polish, Dam Standard and Move brushes (Shift+6 to Shift+9).
• NewMask cavities and Mask peaks, and Extract to pull a shell off a masked area for straps, clothing and armour.
• NewSeven more surface alphas: Pores, Skin, Wrinkles, Leather, Cracks, Stitches and Rivet.
• NewFinishes per object: roughness, metalness, specular, skin sheen, subsurface, translucency and oil, with Clay, Skin, Metal, Leather, Gloss, Fabric and Eye presets.
• NewLighting presets (Studio, Three-point, Dramatic), a backdrop, a ground shadow, and depth of field for stills and turntables.
• NewHair: grow a groom from any object and shape it with Add, Comb, Length, Cut, Puff, Smooth, Clump and Delete. Exports as tubes, curves for Blender, or hair cards.
• NewPhoto references with matched cameras: mark points on a photo and on the sculpt, and Shapeaway solves where the photo was taken. Look through any photo.
• NewProject colour from matched photos onto the sculpt, with the photo’s lighting removed, or brush it on with Paint from photo.
• NewEyes: New eye adds an eyeball with a wet sclera and an iris under a refracting cornea.
• NewTextured scans: OBJ and glTF bring their texture colours, and Fit detail to the scan takes a scan’s fine surface onto a detail mesh.
• NewBake maps: normal, displacement and colour maps with a low-poly OBJ, for game engines.
• ImprovedAlign to view turns the selected object so the way you’re looking becomes its front.

Files: 4.0 opens every earlier file. Sculpts with detail meshes, hair or photo references save in format 8, which 3.0 and older cannot open; other sculpts keep their format.

Faster and leaner at fine detail, and crisper creases.

• ImprovedBig brushes skip the parts that can’t change anything: a 3 cm stroke at Studio detail takes a fifth to a third less time.
• ImprovedBig sculpts save and open on every processor core: 9.5 s down to 2.8 s to save the painted Studio dragon, and under 2 s to open it.
• ImprovedUnpainted clay needs under a third of the memory it did; undo steps shrink the same way.
• ImprovedMeshes share their corners and use about a sixth of the memory.
• NewView › Sharp edges: dual contouring for clean creases and truer corners. Off by default.
• FixedMirrored strokes whose halves nearly touch no longer brush a strip between them twice.

Files: 3.0 opens every earlier file. Sculpts big enough to be saved in parts (most Studio sculpts) use format 6, which 2.6 and older cannot open.

A new Studio detail level, leaner memory, and crisper small additions.

• NewStudio detail (0.4 mm) for miniatures, jewellery and faces. Best with 32 GB of memory.
• ImprovedDistances stored in 16 bits: about a fifth less memory at every level, and slightly faster strokes.
• ImprovedAdd, Carve and Shape blend over a fifth of the brush size, so small brushes make crisp teeth, scales and ridges.
• ImprovedCavity shading is as strong at Studio as at Ultra.

Fixes for upgrading.

• FixedThe welcome card appears once after each feature update, saying what’s new; patch updates don’t bring it back.
• FixedSettings made while developing in the Unity editor no longer leak into the installed app.

An unbounded canvas, mesh import, multiple objects, printing tools, new looks, onboarding and a new interface.

• NewA redesigned interface: a floating tool rail, a tabbed inspector (Tool, Objects, Looks, Refs, Print) and a context bar.
• NewClay Strips, Crease, Snake Hook and Layer brushes; falloff curves, a pressure curve, spacing and texture stamps.
• NewA move-turn-scale gizmo, a radial tool menu on Space, and rebindable shortcuts.
• NewAn unbounded canvas up to a build limit (1 m by default) instead of a fixed 20 cm box.
• NewImport STL, OBJ, PLY and glTF/GLB as clay, with holes closed and vertex colours kept as paint.
• NewSeveral objects per sculpt; Merge, Subtract and Intersect; export everything, the selection, or each object.
• NewOverhang view, print-bed presets, a print report, split with pegs, bases with lettering, and multi-colour 3MF.
• NewCavity shading, a view cube, orthographic view, reference images, an undo history list, PNG and turntable GIF export.
• NewImported matcaps, flat shading, wireframe and a realistic view with soft shadows.
• NewFour sample sculpts, a seven-step guided tour, and a crash report you can save and share by hand.

Files: 2.5 opens every 1.0 file. Its own sculpts use format 4 (or 5 with several objects), which 1.0 cannot open.

The first release: digital clay for art and 3D printing.

• NewTen tools: Add, Carve, Smooth, Flatten, Inflate, Pinch, Grab, Shape, Paint and Mask.
• NewPen pressure, mirror and radial symmetry, lazy mouse, the pottery wheel and the wire cutter.
• NewStart from a sphere, cube, cylinder, coil or slab at Draft, Standard, Fine or Ultra detail.
• New.shapeaway files with thumbnails, autosave every two minutes and crash recovery.
• NewSTL, OBJ, GLB and PLY export, and print helpers: wall thickness, flat base, hollow, remove floating bits.