The free, open-source alternative to ZBrush

Sculpt it. Forge it.
Ship it.

Digital sculpting for Linux, macOS and Windows: the brushes, symmetry and navigation ZBrush artists already know, with no subscription. It adds one-click game-ready LODs, Send to Unreal, Gaussian splats and OpenUSD, plus free built-in AI: turn a sketch or a sentence into a model you can sculpt. No account needed, or bring your own AI.

Download View on GitHub

Free built-in AI
No account
No telemetry
Windows · macOS · Linux
Offline-first

Real recording of SculptForge, scripted demo at 1080p.

Everything a sculptor needs, nothing in the way

A focused sculpting app that starts instantly, works offline and fits straight into game and animation pipelines.

Sculpt the way you already do

Standard, Clay, Move, Inflate, Crease, Flatten, Pinch and Smooth, with symmetry, tablet pressure, ZBrush-style navigation, unlimited undo, subdivision and voxel remesh.

Brush Lab: describe a brush

"Dry cracked mud." "Overlapping dragon scales." An AI turns words into a brush recipe you can tweak with sliders. Works with Claude or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, including local Ollama.

Generate 3D from an image or text

Reconstruct a full, sculptable model from a sketch, a piece of concept art or a description, for free through Hunyuan3D, TRELLIS.2 and Stable Fast 3D on Hugging Face, or with fal.ai or Meshy.

Game & animation ready

Sculpt layers become blend shapes and morph targets. Make a whole LOD chain in one click. Blend shapes survive on every level.

Send to Unreal

One click imports or updates your asset in a running Unreal Editor, on this computer or another one on your network. Static meshes come with LODs, skeletal meshes with morph targets.

Gaussian splats

Load phone captures as a sculpting reference, turn them into watertight meshes, or turn your sculpt into splats. Supports PLY, .splat, glTF KHR_gaussian_splatting and OpenUSD.

Open standards

FBX, glTF/GLB, OpenUSD (USDA/USDZ), OBJ and PLY. Exports are checked with the Khronos glTF validator and Pixar's OpenUSD tools.

Scriptable, and agent-ready

sculptforge-cli runs any operation headless for build farms. Its built-in MCP server lets Claude Code, Claude Desktop or any MCP client sculpt, convert and export.

See it in action

Every clip is a real, unedited recording of the app, made with its built-in demo recorder. Waits for AI models are sped up and labelled on screen.

Brush Lab, powered by a local AI

Type "dry cracked mud", and a small open model running on the same machine designs the brush. Then ask for "deeper cracks, sharper edges". Nothing leaves your computer.

The teddy bear reconstructed as a full 3D model

From a sketch to a sculptable model in about 20 seconds

A quick drawing became a full 3D model, with separate ears, arms and legs, a back and real depth. It was made with the free Hunyuan3D 2.1 model, then voxel-remeshed into one clean surface ready to sculpt. You can also type a description instead of using an image.

Blend shapes, LODs and Unreal

Sculpt an expression on its own layer and play it back. Generate a LOD chain and inspect each level, then send a static mesh with LODs, or a skeletal mesh with morph targets, to Unreal Engine.

Gaussian splats, both ways

Turn a sculpt into Gaussian splats for web viewers and engines, and turn splat captures into watertight meshes in under a second.

Free AI built in, or bring your own

AI works out of the box at no cost: free models for image and text to 3D, and local models for brush design. Every AI feature is optional and talks directly to the service you pick. SculptForge has no servers, no account and no telemetry.

Local models (Ollama, LM Studio) for brush design. They're free, private and work offline.
Free, built in: Hunyuan3D, TRELLIS.2 and Stable Fast 3D on Hugging Face for image and text to 3D, with no key needed.
Bring your own Claude, fal.ai or Meshy key when you want more speed or capacity.

Each model has its own licence. For example, Tencent's Hunyuan3D isn't licensed for use in the EU, UK or South Korea. See the AI services and privacy guide.

How it compares

	SculptForge	ZBrush	Blender	Nomad
Price	Free	Subscription	Free	Paid
Built for sculpting	Yes	Yes	General 3D suite	Yes (mobile first)
Open source	GPL	No	GPL	No
Native Linux	Yes	No	Yes	No
Send to Unreal	Built in	Plugin	Add-on	No
Image / text to 3D	Built in	No	Add-ons	No
Gaussian splats	Built in	No	Add-ons	No
AI agent control (MCP)	Built in	No	Add-ons	No
VFX Reference Platform builds	CY2026/27	No	Yes	No

SculptForge is young. It doesn't yet have retopology, UVs or texture painting. See the roadmap.

Built for studio pipelines

Animation, VFX and game studios run their own pipelines. SculptForge fits into them instead of asking them to fit around it.

VFX Reference Platform CY2026 & CY2027. Built and tested on Rocky Linux 8 and 9 with GCC 14.2, C++20 and Python 3.13.
Python API (import sculptforge) with NumPy mesh access, plus a Rez package for deployment.
Native Linux, a headless CLI, farm rendering, and no licence server, seats or accounts.
OpenUSD, FBX and glTF in and out, with blend shapes and LODs.

Read the studio guide →

Make it yours

SculptForge is GPL-3.0. Fork it and wire it into your asset system. The GPL only asks you to share source if you distribute a modified version outside your organisation, so in-house changes can stay in-house.

import sculptforge as sf

doc = sf.Document()
sf.run(doc, "open", path="troll_base.fbx")
sf.run(doc, "remesh", resolution=320)
sf.run(doc, "export_usd", path="troll.usda")
verts = doc.vertices   # NumPy (N, 3)

Download

Version 0.1.0. All builds come from the latest GitHub release, with SHA-256 checksums.

Windows10 / 11 · installer or portable .zip macOS11+ · Apple Silicon & Intel · .dmg Ubuntu / Debian.deb · x86_64 & ARM64 Fedora / RHEL 9+.rpm · x86_64 & ARM64 Any LinuxAppImage · runs anywhere

Arch Linuxyay -S sculptforge

The builds aren't code-signed yet. On macOS, right-click the app and choose Open the first time. On Windows, if SmartScreen appears, choose More info → Run anyway. You can also build from source.

Questions

Is it really free? Can I sell what I make?

Yes. SculptForge is free under the GPL-3.0, and you own everything you sculpt with it. The GPL covers the program's source code, not your models. If you use an AI model to generate a starting point, that model's licence also applies (see the AI services guide).

Do I need AI to use it?

No. Sculpting, layers, LODs, remeshing, file formats and Send to Unreal all work offline with no AI at all. The AI tools are extras you can switch to a local model or simply ignore.

Which Unreal versions work with Send to Unreal?

It targets Unreal Engine 5. It uses Unreal's built-in Python remote execution, so you only enable the Python plugin and tick "Enable Remote Execution"; there's nothing to install in your project. You can always export an Unreal-ready FBX instead.

Can SculptForge replace ZBrush for me?

For many sculpting and game-asset jobs, yes. Blocking out, sculpting forms and detail, blend shapes, LODs and getting assets into Unreal, glTF or USD all work today, with familiar brushes and controls. SculptForge doesn't yet have multiresolution subdivision levels, ZRemesher-class retopology, polypaint or UVs, and it can't open ZBrush's .ZTL files (export OBJ or FBX from ZBrush instead). It's an independent project, not affiliated with Maxon.

How can I help?

Try it, report bugs, share brushes, and send pull requests. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Sculpt it. Forge it.Ship it.