Leopoly puts ZBrush-like tools inside your web browser
If Clara.io is the 3ds Max of the online world, and Lagoa is its V-Ray, new online sculpting system Leopoly is aiming to be its ZBrush – or at least its 123D Sculpt.
Basic 3D sculpting tools in your browser
Developed by Hungarian firm Leonar3Do, best known for its VR technology, the free online service puts basic 3D sculpting and painting tools inside your browser.
When we say ‘basic’, we mean it: as well as simple navigation and brush size controls, you get Push/Pull, Sculpt (think ZBrush’s Standard brush), Smooth and Mirror tools, and a colour picker.
But sculpting is intuitive, there are hotkeys for most things, and performance is workable: over a not-terribly-great 8MB domestic broadband connection, the frame rate just stayed on the right side of 20fps.
More advanced options
As well as using your mouse or graphics tablet, you can hook up Leonar3Do’s Bird 3D mouse, and there are anaglyph and stereoscopic display modes.
A $9.99 payment gives you access to LeopolyNext, which unlocks an Edge tool, and lets you import or export models, or work on them offline.
You won’t be doing serious work in Leopoly just yet, but it’s at least in the same ballpark as 123D Sculpt, Autodesk’s 3D-printing-focused sculpting app, with the bonus that it works on desktop, not just iPads.
All in all, it’s a fun thing to play around with in your lunchbreak, and we’d be interested to see what a talented digital sculptor can get out of it.