Quote:

---

opengl polygons how luxology calls them is what i meant with subdivision surface geometry. opengl polygons isn't a commonly used term for this.

---

Quote:

---

it's just that in modo image based sculpting is the main sculpting feature and what i refer to when i say modo sculpting. mesh based sculpting in modo isn't performant enough for high detail and it's nothing special at all.

---

In a previous post you state that you know sculpting in modo, but the above quote shows that you do not really understand why Luxology created both mesh based and image based sculpting. Firstly, you call mesh based sculpting in modo "nothing special at all" and indicate that it does not perform well. This means you don't understand the two sculpting methods as Luxology intends for them to be used. Therefore, I will attempt to help you out .

As stated previously, mesh based sculpting IS NOT for fine details. It is definitely for broad or large details. Image based sculpting is the opposite. It is definitely for fine details and NOT for large or broad details. If you create a large brush to sculpt with and go to image based sculpting, you will find that image based sculpting is slow ... so slow that, in many cases, it is unusable. However, switch to a small brush and you can paint fine details with no problems.

Now, if you switch to mesh based sculpting and create a large brush, you can zoom along and make changes (via sculpting) to your geometry with no problems. If you were to make the brush small, though, then you run into problems. The first problem is that, since mesh based sculpting modifies geometry, it will require a lot of geometry to make fine details. This means you would have to keep sub-dividing the model to create the needed geometry and this would cause modo to come to a virtual stand-still (depending on the number of polys, of course).

For these reasons, Luxology created two base forms of sculpting: mesh and image. Mesh based sculpting is for medium to large sculpts on the mesh itself. Image based sculpting is for small or fine details to be sculpted on micro-polys/OpenGL polys.

If you read the Luxology information on sculpting or, more importantly, watch the sculpting tutorials on LuxologyTV, then you will see that this is exactly how they recommend you work in modo when sculpting. Here are some examples from LuxologyTV:

http://www.luxology.com/training/video.aspx?id=115

http://www.luxology.com/training/video.aspx?id=114

The initial changes to the mesh where made with mesh based sculpting. The fine details were added via image based sculpting. The broad details would have been slow to do with image based sculpting, but turn out to be quite easy with mesh based sculpting. This is the modo method of sculpting.