Can I sculpt images as planes?

Question

I'm new to Blender, and I'm trying to figure out how can I distort images or videos 3-dimensionally. I'm importing an image or video as 'images as planes', going to sculpting mode and trying to sculpt the surface on the plane, but it doesn't do anything. When I enable dyntopo, then it works, but the image is gone. It also works in 'edit mode', but then it's too slow and it's too geometrical. I would like to achieve more organic and less precise shapes, like in Google Street View.

Is it possible to sculpt 'images as planes'?

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Great! Thank you for all the tips! It works! I'd have two more questions, since I do need some geometrical extrusions as well:

1. I want to place single vertices in order to copy/mark bigger, complex shapes that I see on the photo. So by holding Ctrl + right click, I can add a single vertex and I can finish the loop by merging the last and the first vertex points. But it still floats in the space and it's not 'snapped' onto the image /plane. How do I create freehand vertices (loopcuts?) on a face/ the plane? Or how do I link those vertices with the picture plane?
2. Then I'd like to extrude that shape, but only one side of it. E.g: if there is a door on the photo, I can extrude it. But how do I 'open the door'? I mean, the left side stays on the surface and the right side extrudes/comes forward in perspective?

I would really appreciate it if you could help me out with this! When I'm watching/reading tutorials I can't find the right answers...

Answer 1

Yes, you can. You just have to subdivide the plane before.

So select the plane, and right mouse click → subdivide.

Then choose here (number of cuts) a big enough number for your sculpting. This depends on your size of your plane. e.g., 20.

You will see this dialog directly after you tapped on "subdivide" in the bottom left corner if you tap on this:

Answer 2

The answer is "yes" The sculpting needs a lot of geometry so, when you import the plane there are just four vertices.

You can add the geometry by subdividing it or using subdivision surface modifier (you can also use multi res modifier if it's a complex sculpt) and you are able to sculpt.

The reason why it doesn't work with dynamic topology is that, dynamic topology distorts your uv's (where the image texture is stored) by adding geometry in a non-preservative way.

But I wouldn't suggest you to sculpt the images as planes although it works since, the image might get distorted while stretching.

I prefer modelling using loopcuts while working with images as planes.

Answer 3

The way I would do it is quite simple. Just subdivide the plane go into sculpt mode and it would work it may look low poly if you didn't subdivide it enough.