All bindings below are the defaults. Every one is remappable in Edit > Settings > Shortcuts, category "Sculpt Brush" for the keyboard commands, or "Brush Palette (number keys 1-9, then 0 + radial menu)" for the ten quick-select slots.
Mouse
| Gesture | Result |
|---|---|
| LMB drag on the mesh | A brush stroke, mask paint, or marquee - whichever mode is active. |
LMB drag + Shift |
Smooth, on every brush (uses the shared Smooth Strength and Smooth Iterations, not Strength). |
LMB drag + Ctrl |
Invert the brush direction - push becomes pull, inflate becomes deflate, build becomes dig, scale-up becomes scale-down, twist reverses. |
Alt + LMB |
Camera orbit. This always takes the click away from the tool under the default and Maya navigation presets; under the Blender preset, Alt+LMB is handed back to the tool instead. |
| RMB drag | Camera look; hold WASDQE at the same time to fly, and the wheel adjusts fly speed while RMB is held. |
| MMB drag | Camera pan. |
| Wheel | Dolly. |
Ctrl / Shift + LMB, in Marquee mode |
Add to / remove from the selection. No modifier replaces it. |
| Drag a tool-tower button | Starts a tool drag - drop it on a radial-menu wedge to reassign that palette slot, which is remembered afterward. |
Keyboard
| Command | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Adjust Brush Size (hold) | B |
Hold and slide the mouse horizontally to scale the brush. Blocks strokes while held, and the cursor is warped back to where you started on release. |
| Adjust Brush Falloff (hold) | N |
Same gesture, edits Falloff (clamped 0-1). |
| Adjust Brush Strength (hold) | T |
Same gesture, edits Strength. |
| Decrease / Increase Brush Size | [ / ] |
Multiplies the radius by 1/1.1 or 1.1 - a proportional step, and holding the key ramps up. |
| Decrease / Increase Brush Strength | Shift+[ / Shift+] |
+-0.05 on Strength. |
| Brush Slot 1-10 | 1-9, then 0 |
Quick-selects that palette brush. Does nothing if the current node does not offer that tool. |
| Radial Brush Menu (hold) | Space |
Fans the palette brushes around the cursor - move to a wedge and release to pick it. Escape cancels. Only opens when the cursor is over the viewport. |
| Toggle Symmetry | X |
Also sets the axis to X if it was still None. |
| Cycle Symmetry Axis | Shift+X |
X, then Y, then Z, then back to X - also force-enables symmetry. |
| Toggle Mask-Paint Mode | M |
Enters or leaves mask paint. |
| Mask: Marquee Mode | Shift+M |
Cycles between Brush and Marquee selection mode. |
| Invert Mask | Ctrl+I |
Graded invert of the current mask. |
| Clear Mask | Alt+M |
Clears the mask and the Sections selection. |
| Toggle Lazy Mouse | L |
Turns Lazy Mouse on or off. |
| Mask: Blur / Sharpen / Grow / Shrink / Cavity | Ctrl+B / Ctrl+Shift+B / Ctrl+G / Ctrl+Shift+G / Ctrl+K |
Runs that mask filter - see Masking and Selection. |
| Frame Selected | F |
Focuses the point under the brush cursor if one is hovering the mesh, otherwise frames the whole mesh. |
| Undo / Redo | Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y |
Ctrl+Shift+Z also works as redo. |
The symmetry, mask and lazy-mouse keys only do anything while a brush tool is active - they are no-ops for gizmo tools (Transform, Lattice Deformer) and for action-only tools.
Hold-and-drag adjust
While B, N or T is held, a small pill (220x64) follows the cursor showing which value you are editing and its live number to four decimal places: BRUSH SIZE with a cyan dot, FALLOFF with a violet dot, or STRENGTH with an orange dot. The step per pixel of mouse movement for the Size adjust is the Step Size setting.
Radial menu
Hold Space over the viewport to fan the ten palette brushes out around the cursor. Move into a wedge and release to pick it, or press Escape to cancel without picking anything. The menu's centre shows the name of whichever brush you are currently hovering, or "Pick a brush" while the cursor sits in the small dead zone in the middle.
Undo
One undo entry is pushed per stroke, when the stroke commits on release - not continuously while you drag. Each entry is labelled with the tool that made it: "Move Brush", "Sculpt Brush", "Inflate Brush", "Pinch Brush", "Flatten Brush", "Clay Brush", "Scrape Brush", "Fill Brush", "Smooth Brush", "Restore Brush", "Grab Brush", "Scale Brush", "Twist Brush", "Project Brush", "Blend Brush", "Laplacian Smooth", "Mirror Deltas", "Delta Mush", "Displacement", "Transform" and "Lattice Deform" (anything else falls back to "Brush Stroke").
Mask painting is not undoable. It is a selection, not a mesh-data edit, so it never pushes an undo entry. Ctrl+Z after painting a mask undoes the last mesh edit, not your paint.
Undoing or redoing a stroke also re-derives the symmetry plane, so the mirror keeps tracking the geometry correctly.
On-screen hints
| Where | Exact text | When |
|---|---|---|
| Top-left, under the pane label | Size %.2f Strength %.2f Falloff %.2f Symmetry %s, plus Mask when mask mode is on and Lazy when Lazy Mouse is on. Symmetry shows Off or the axis name. |
Whenever a brush tool is active, in the source viewport only. |
| Top-centre | "Preparing sculpt data..." | The GPU sculpt buffers are still building. |
| Toast | "Preparing sculpt data - one moment..." | You tried to stroke before the buffers were ready. Repeats at most every 2 seconds. |
| Toast | "No active sculpt layer - add or select a layer in the Layers panel to sculpt." | You tried to stroke with no active layer. |
| Toast | "No active sculpt layer - add or select a layer in the Layers panel to restore." / "...to blend." | You ran the whole-mesh Restore or Blend action with no active layer. |
| Toast | "The target mesh is too coarse for this VDM stamp's detail - subdivide under the stamp." | A VDM stamp on a mesh whose edge length is more than 5% of the stamp's diameter. |
| Toast | "Blend Tool: Reference mesh is missing or doesn't match the live mesh vertex count - blending will have no effect." / "Blend Tool: Original mesh vertex count doesn't match the live mesh - Append/Subtract blend modes will have no effect." | Blend is missing a valid Reference or Rest Pose. Shown once per change from valid to invalid. |
| Cursor-anchored pill | BRUSH SIZE / FALLOFF / STRENGTH with the live value | While B, N or T is held - see above. |
| Radial menu centre | The hovered brush's name, or "Pick a brush" | While Space is held. |
| Bottom-centre nav hint | WASD walk . RMB look . Alt+LMB orbit . MMB pan . Wheel zoom . F focus (perspective) or MMB pan . Wheel zoom . F focus (ortho) |
Hidden while any tool is active - the Accept/Cancel banner takes that spot instead. |
| Layers panel empty state | "No layers - sculpting is disabled. Add a layer to start sculpting (every stroke records into the active layer; per-layer strength, visibility, delete)." | The Sculpt Layers stack is empty. |
| Layers panel title | "Sculpt Layers" | Always. |
| Tool panel chevron | "Show / hide tool details" | Always, as its tooltip. |