Scoop & Flat

The Scoop | Flat switch only matters when you carve In on a curved spot. It sits at the top of the Dig in view, above the Small / Med / Big step:

Both positions dig straight into the surface; the difference is the pocket’s floor (Flat is picked above):

• Scoop keeps the floor rounded, following the surface. Carve into a ball and the bottom of the dent stays ball-shaped: dimples and soft dents.
• Flat digs down to a flat floor. Carve into a ball and you get a shelf or a facet. The cut squares itself to the nearest clean direction, so a Flat bite always comes out straight, never skewed by where the camera happened to be.

On a flat face they do exactly the same thing, so you only need to think about this switch on spheres, barrels, and donuts.

Flat is the “make it architectural” switch: two Flat bites meeting at 45° cut a wedge, and a Flat shelf on a sphere is the start of every snowman face.