by nickberckley·Workflow
Images © nickberckley. Used for product review; image policy.
Face Set Operators earns its place in the blender_extensions library by extending face sets past sculpting itself, routing brush-drawn divisions into materials, UVs, vertex groups, and geometry nodes from one small add-on.
Face Set Operators brings more advanced uses for sculpt mode face sets inside Blender. Rather than manually selecting faces in edit mode and assigning them to groups, attributes, and material slots, you divide a mesh into separate parts with brush strokes in sculpt mode, for any purpose.
The add-on converts face sets in four ways. Face Sets to Material Slots draws face sets where you want materials and assigns dummy materials to each, which you can later swap out. Face Sets to UVMap adds seams to face set boundaries and unwraps the mesh accordingly, with support for custom edit mode seams alongside. Face Sets to Vertex Groups turns each face set into a vertex group with every vertex weighted at 1, so you can work on them outside sculpt mode. Face Sets to Attribute converts cached face sets into an integer attribute, assigning each group an ID from 0 to N for use in geometry nodes.
It also includes an operator to convert edit mode selections into sculpt masks, callable from the Vertex menu or the Mask menu.
Face Set Operators is best for sculpt mode artists who want to divide meshes with brush strokes and reuse those face sets as material slots, UV islands, vertex groups, or attributes.
Face Set Operators is completely free to download and use.
Face Set Operators lists compatibility with Blender 4.2 LTS and newer, so it runs on the 4.2 long-term support release and later versions. The current release is version 1.0.0, published in June 2024. It's distributed as a Blender extension you can drag and drop into Blender or download and install from disk. For the exact minimum version and any later updates, check the developer's page before installing on a specific build.
Face Set Operators is listed as free in this catalog and is released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later. That open-source license governs how you can use, modify, and redistribute the add-on. The extension also states it requires no special permissions to run inside Blender. The developer maintains a GitHub repository where you can report issues and view the source. For the most current licensing terms and any changes, check the developer's page.
Face Set Operators includes a Face Sets to Attribute operator aimed at geometry nodes. Face sets can't be used procedurally in geometry nodes modifiers by design, but this operator converts cached face sets into an integer attribute, assigning each group of faces an integer ID from 0 to N. That lets you bring a sculpting workflow into geometry nodes. The developer also notes it can be used to create abstract art.
Face Set Operators is a small extension, around 4.5 KB, that installs into Blender either by dragging and dropping the file into Blender or by downloading it and installing from disk. It requires no special permissions once added. It's released under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later, and the developer maintains a GitHub repository for issue reports and source.
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