This is The Future of 3D Modeling?

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]As a 3D artist, 3D modeling is probably something you do on a daily basis or at least really often. But what if I told you there is a completely new 3D modeling method that really sounds promising and it is not like anything we've seen before. It is called SDF or signed distance field. But honestly, it has been around for decades and now it is making a huge comeback. So what is this exactly and why you should care?

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[00:00:50]SDF modeling stands for sign distance field modeling. So instead of building objects using polygons, edges, and vertices like traditional 3D modeling, you know, SDF modeling describes shapes using math. Basically, every point in 3D space stores a value that tells you how far it is from the surface of an object.

[00:01:10]If the value is negative, the point is inside the object. If it is positive, it is outside. And if it is zero, that's the exact surface. A really simple way to think about it is imagining an invisible distance fog around the objects. So a sphere in SDF is not really a mesh. It is just an equation saying everything within this distance forms a sphere. Because of that SDF shapes can blend together extremely smoothly. You can mark shapes, cut holes, twist forms, or create procedural geometry without worrying about messy topology. That's one reason why people sometimes compare it to digital clay or procedural sculpting.

[00:01:55]One of the biggest places SDF is used is not even modeling. It is actually real-time rendering and shaders. That's why a lot of people describe it as modeling with shaders. A lot of shader toy demos, procedural art, and ray matching scenes use SDFs because they can generate complex geometry entirely through code. So instead of storing a full mesh, the renderer mathematically checks distances while tracing rays through space. SDFs are also heavily used in game development. for example, games and engines using them, for example, to smooth font rendering, collision detection, global illumination, procedural effects, and volutric rendering. And here's the interesting thing. V famously used SDFs for scaling text rendering in games, and they did this in the early 2000s, and the GDO engine introduced SDF-based GI for large open worlds. When it comes to 3D in general, the SDF modeling is becoming more popular in procedural tools and experimental modeling software. Programs like dreams, Houdini style procedural systems, node based workflows, and some modern and voxo tools actually use SDF concepts because they are great for things like procedural destruction, terrain generation, booleans, metabolike blending, complex sci-fi shapes, and generative art. and it is especially powerful for things like futuristic hard surface designs, organic plans, even fluids and abstract procedural worlds.

[00:03:27]The downside is that SDFs are not always ideal for traditional product pipelines.

[00:03:33]I mean, many workflows still need polygonal meshes for UVs, rigging, animation, and exporting to game engines. So in practice, SDF modeling is often used as a procedural generation stage before converting the result into geometry. And you can put it like this.

[00:03:51]Polygonal modeling equals building shapes manually with geometry. And SDF modeling equals describing shapes mathematically through distance fields.

[00:04:00]And honestly, that's why a lot of people think SDFs feel like modeling with shaders.

[00:04:08]The origins of SDFs actually go way deeper than most people think. The core math behind sign distance fields come from older mathematical concepts like implicit surfaces and distance transforms that researchers were experimenting with decades ago in computer graphics and scientific visualization. But the real turning point happened in the late 1980s and the mid 90s too where researchers started exploring ways to render procedural surfaces without the traditional polygons. And one of the biggest names connected to this was John Cart whose famous sphere tracing paper became one of the foundations of modern SDF rendering. What's funny is that SDFs stayed kind of underground for years, even decades. The mainstream 3D industry was completely dominated by polygonal pipelines as you know. So SDFs mostly lived inside research papers, demo scene experiments, procedural rendering communities, and weird experimental graphics projects. And here's the interesting thing. A lot of early adapters were people making real-time fractals, procedural workflows, and shader experiments rather than big AAA studios because honestly they saw it as not necessary. The demo scenes, especially in the early days, loved SDFs because you could create insanely complex visuals with tiny executable sizes. That's why a lot of old school shader artists became obsessed with ray marching and procedural distance fields long before it became trending. And one of the lesserknown companies that pushed SDF ideas really early as I said was Valve. Most people associate SDFs with fancy procedural rendering today, but Valve quietly used signed distant fields back in the 2000s for scalable front rendering in games. So instead of storing giant texture fonts, they used SDFs to keep text sharp at different resolutions and sizes. It kind of sounds simple, but at the time it was pretty clever GPU trick. Another really interesting project was Media Molecule with the game Dreams on PlayStation. The engine became famous because it relied heavily on SDF-l like volutric and implicit rendering ideas instead of the traditional triangleheavy pipelines. A lot of the sculpting in dreams felt almost magical because objects blend together smoothly with digital clay.

[00:06:31]Under the hood, there were tons of distant fields concepts helping make that possible. And many artists didn't even realize they were basically using procedural implicit modeling technology.

[00:06:42]Then you have companies like Epic Games using SDF in Unreal Engine for things like distance field ambient occlusion, soft shadows, and global illumination experiments. It wasn't exactly SDF modeling in the artistic sense, but it showed how useful distance fields were becoming in modern rendering pipelines.

[00:07:01]Even modern non era rendering research still overlaps with some of these ideas.

[00:07:07]A nish adoption happened in scientific and industrial fields. For example, medical visualization software, CAD experiments, and procedural manufacturing research started using SDFs because they are incredibly good at describing smooth surfaces mathematically. Some experimental cut systems even tried replacing traditional mesh workflows with fully procedural distance field geometry because booleans became insanely stable compared to polygonal modeling.

[00:07:40]The interesting thing is that the SDF DAC is slowly sneaking its way into a normal 3D software even though most artists don't realize they are using distant fields and its concepts. In Blender, for example, there is a whole underground wave of SDF tools and experiments happening right now. You've got like contra SDF which basically turns Blender into a procedural SDF modeler where you can combine primitives using smooth booleans and by matching instead of the normal meshes. It feels like almost sculpting with mathematical clay. It looks like ZBrush or something but not quite. So you can keep stacking operations non-destructively, blend shapes together perfectly and generate insanely smooth surfaces without topology headaches. What makes these Blender SDF add-ons interesting is that many of them don't even rely on Blender's normal geometry systems while editing. I mean some of them use custom GLS and way marking and they can do this directly in the viewport. So instead of showing polygons, they are literally rendering the mathematical distance fields in real time. And add-ons like Chisel are trying to make SDF workflows feel more native inside Blender, almost like using modifiers and booleans normally, except objects stay perfectly smooth no matter how much you zoom in.

[00:09:00]In Houdini, for example, SDFs are much more deeply integrated into the actual core workflow. So, Houdini artists use SDFs constantly for simulations, destruction, collision, smoke, fluids, and procedural effects. Houdini basically treats SDFs as one of the foundations of polyture workflows. For example, when doing collisions in pyro or fluid sims, objects often get converted into distance fields because SDFs are extremely fast and stable for calculating distances and intersections.

[00:09:32]Side effects even has dedicated SDF nodes for blending, reshaping, rebuilding, and modifying distance fields directly. One cool thing in Houdini is how SDFs make booleans feel almost magical. So instead of polygonal booleans that sometimes explode into broken topology, SDF booleans are mathematically stable. That's why procedural destruction artists love them because you can fracture objects, erode surfaces, generate caves, terrains, melting effects, or organic transitions very cleanly. A lot of Houdini's VFX magic behind the scenes is honestly just extremely smart usage of volumes and signed distance fields. Then you've got Substance Designer and Substance Modeler where SDF ideas became super important especially for procedural workflows. For example, Substance Designer has SDF nodes that generate distance fields from textures and volumes, which are incredibly useful for procedural masks, bevels, edgeware, shape blending, and generating clean shapes from grayscale inputs. But Substance Modeler is where things get really crazy. Adobe basically built the whole software around SDF sculpting concepts. I mean, instead of worrying about topology, you can actually sculpt and combine forms almost like you're working with metapoles, you can smoothly merge shapes together, carve objects out, and create hard surface concepts extremely quickly.

[00:10:58]That's why a lot of concept artists love it, especially for sci-fi designs or creative exploration, because it is less about perfect topology and more about fast ideation. There are also smaller experimental projects that use SDFs actually in weird ways. For example, there are plugins for GDO engine where you can build entire procedural models using SDF primitives directly inside the engine. So instead of importing meshes, you generate shapes mathematically and blend them live. And honestly, this whole area is exploding lately because right now there is an entire new generation of SDF focused modeling tools like SDF modeler, uniform, conjurdf, and others trying to create an alternative to polygonal modeling entirely. And there you have it guys. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up. Also, please subscribe to the channel to receive more videos like this. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you in the next one.