The Comprehensive list of Nomad Sculpt Tools you must know
Manny Acharya
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Nomad Sculpt is an Android and iOS software for 3D modelling, texturing, and rendering.
As if modelling clay, you may create models with as many as millions of polygons in Nomad Sculpt.
It uses vertex painting & PBR-based texturing approach and can render in real time.
The Former Sketch fab developer Stéphane Ginier has developed and released Nomad, a highly promising new digital sculpting app for iPads and Android tablets.
This $13.99 app enables artists to sculpt and paint organic characters on the move, then export the results in OBJ,STL or glTF format to refine in other DCC software.
In this Blog I will be covering all the Tools that you need to use Nomad Sculpt Effectively..
Quick Guide
Nomad Sculpt is a sculpting app available for both iPad and Android. If you have an iPad, you’ll have to purchase it to download it.
On Android, however, you can download it for free and unlock the tools via in-app purchases. (let me tell ya’ll The free version is limited.)
The full set of features includes several brushes, primitive shapes, polygon cutting tools, and loops; the tools are also sensitive to pencil pressure.
You can separate your modifications into different layers to easily go back and forth, and avoid damaging certain areas.
- Platform: iPad and Android – Check out Top 10 Tablets for Nomad Sculpt
- Price: ~$14.99( iPad)
- Standout features: easy to use App, Different brush types, pencil sensitivity, vertex painting, working by layers, rendering, exporting
- Ease of use: Easy to learn, both iPad and Android versions recommended
- Check out Beginners Comprehensive Guide eBook to Kick start your Journey to Nomad sculpt.
Resources:
Check out the Comprehensive List of Digital Resources needed to Start your Digital Art & Digital Sculpt Journey:
Nomad Sculpt : Brush
Traditional sculpt use set of tools for carving and sculpting. We have complimentary brush tools in digital medium in softwares like nomad and other to do similar job.
In addition to this we also need move tool and drag tool in digital medium as replacement for traditional artist fingers.Also another dis-similarity is stretching. During sculpting you may stretch the 3d mesh by dragging or moving .
Once this occurs it will not give desired result when you are sculpting .
This doesn’t occur in traditional sculpting with clay.
In order to fix this stretch you will need to ‘Re-Mesh’.
It will uniform your 3d mesh so you can continue working on the same.
In beginning usually digital artist moves the sculpt often followed by re-mesh often to get the desired shape and form before sculpting. its also called Re-Topologise
Best Tools for Nomad Sculpt
- The best iPad for Nomad Sculpt- 3D Art
- How to get started with Digital art- A Beginners Guide
- The Best tablets for digital Art in 2022[ Budget to Splurge]
- The best Stylus for digital art in 2022
- How to do Nomad Sculpt Rendering
- How to make 3d sculpture from the photo on iPad- Quick Guide
- How to export Nomad 3d sculpt art to procreate for coloring
- Zbrush Vs Nomad Sculpt which will you use:A Beginners Guide
- Forger 3d vs Nomad sculpt- which App should You use
Brush/Tools
Following are the default brush collections in Nomad Sculpt.
01. Move – To move the form
02. Drag – Pulls the form. Creates sharper movement compared to the move tool.
Difference between Move & Drag: If you have a Cluster of Objects for Instance “chain” merge via the ” simple Merge” Option. Move tool will Move each Object within the cluster. While the drag tool will move the entire cluster.
03. Clay – Adds more build on your Sculpt.
04. A standard brush. Adds more Build but has more control than clay Brush and also has smooth clay distribution compared to clay brush
05. Inflate– To add more clay and more baloony. Exaggerated standard brush.
06. Flatten – Flatten the area
07. Smooth – To smoothen the edges and for a smoother surface
08. Crease – Crease tools can be useful to sculpt small cuts or dents.
09. Pinch – This tool can be used to sharpen edges. It brings the Vertices closer . Normally, used to sharpen the edges or Create hard edges.
10. Nudge – Move points along the stroke.
11. Stamp – Its brush type that creates impression based on alpha used. ( Alphas discussed in detail later int he Blog)
Following are default brushes in Nomad Sculpt.
12. Layers – Is just like photoshop layers. You can preserve your changes in layers and later adjust its strength by adjusting the opacity of the layer.
13. Trim – The Trim tool works by removing a chunk of your mesh and then filling the hole. (If fill hole option is active)
14. Project – The Project tool will project the points on a shape that you draw, but unlike the Trim tool, the topology is kept intact.
Trim tool Vs project Tool: When the Trim tool is used with the fill Option to Trim the shapes, the Resulting shape has irregular filled area. The Project Tool is used to trim the shapes, where the resulting shape has voxelated /regular area.
15. Split -Similar to the Trim tool, except that it produces two different objects instead of one.
16. Insert: Add primitives at the desired location of the existing mesh
17. Paint and Smudge tool – Covered in Vertex Painting.
18. View: Once you hit view all objects in your sculpt is visible else only the object you are actively working on is visible rest are greyed. Mostly Used for rendering.
Most of these brushes/tools comes with positive and negative feedback.
For instance Crease tool default create sharp dents and when used as negative will create dents in opposite direction. Tools to switch negative and positive brush is called ‘Local’ on the left.
Resources:
Check out the Comprehensive List of Digital Resources needed to Start your Digital Art & Digital Sculpt Journey:
19.Masking
Masking is very important tool in sculpting. You mask the area on you object using mask tool.
It gives you lot of control during sculpting if you don’t want some areas to get affected and also when used in combination with Gizmo, & trim brush
This tool is mostly similar to the Masking tool, the main difference is that you don’t use stroke to paint mask, but instead use the shape selector.
If you go in the tool settings, you can also perform other operations on the mask. Like sharpen, blur , invert and clear.
Another important feature of masking is extraction. Crucial for creating hair, clothing etc. you will find it in tool settings. It will extract the shape as per the mask applied and creates a separate object. that can be further sculpted.
This tool lets you mask points. Masked vertices can’t be sculpted or painted afterwards, this is a way to “protect” some area.
If you go in the tool settings, you can also perform other operations on the mask
20.GizMo
Another critical tool. It lets you translate, rotate and scale your mesh with a single tool.
It can be used in combination with ‘Symmtery box ‘ . Default Symmetry is checked ‘ No’ .
You can also move pivot of gizmo tool by unlocking option in the left It usually affect rotation not transform.
Under tool setting you will find few important option under Action – Move origin, Reset andBake.
21.Transform
Translate, rotate and scale the model by using two fingers. The interaction is more or less similar to the camera movement.
- Panning will translate the model
- Pinching will scale the model
- Twisting will rotate the model
You can disable each of these movements separately, for example if you disable Scaling you will only be able to translate and rotate at the same time.
22.Insert
Insert an object in the scene. When the insertion takes place, Nomad switches automatically to the Transform tool for quick adjustment and then switches back the Insert tool when you release your fingers.
23.Alphas
Alphas are very important tool in 3d Sculpting.
An Alpha is a grayscale intensity map. It can be used to represent intensity, masking, and similar things. They usually look like this.
It is usually used in conjunction with brushes.
It changes tip of the brush .
But if you want to make an impression from the brush exactly in the shape of alphas you are using you will need to change stroke type to Grab-Dynamic radius from default Dot.
This will prevent continuous brush stoke and you will be able to create alpha impression of your desires size by dragging bush on surface of your object.
Another setting you will need to tweak is fall off.
Change it to custom and drag the graph by tapping anywhere on the line of the graph and dragging to the corner. It should look like this.
24.Stamp
Stamp: This is simply the Brush tool with a stroke type set to Grab – dynamic radius.
Steps:
- Select Alpha( Grey scale)
- Select fall off
- Grab Dynamic
- Resolution of Stamp depends on Resolution/density of mesh!
25.Vertext paint
Vertex Paint : Painting on 3D mesh could be complex than you think. Vertex painting is used when need to paint on 3d mesh as it is.While industrial painting softwares like Substance Painter ( Also Mobile Devices App – Procreate) utilize UV texturing.
So you basically sort out your mesh by unwrapping UVs within Maya or Blender before painting on it). If you want to use vertex paint, you can do it within Nomad, export it to Blender, and even move the vertex paint to the uv maps once the model has been unwrapped and rendered.
This Basic vertex painting tool in Nomad will let you achieve already amazingly results.
26.Export
Once you created your sculpt you obviously want to either take 2d pictures of it in different views or would like to export it out say for 3d printing or to bring it to another software for further improvising.
3d: Nomad Supports – GLB, OBJ, and STL formats. OBJ is the most common and most of the 3d software and 3D Printers support it.
2d: Supports PNG format since you have the option to even export your file with you without background. PNG is ideal for the same.
27. Nomad Sculpt Special Tools
Lathe : Create a revolution surface by drawing a curve first. So you draw a curve .
Edit it points to get the desired curve shape and hit green dot to see it revolve around to make a shape. . Ideal for cylindrical or pot like shapes.
Triplannar : This is very unusual tool. More like an Easter egg.
It will help you create unusual shapes depending upon you blocking around three axis.You have to try yourself. Play around and unravel the mystery.
Tube : Creates tube along the points of drawing .
This can further be edited to curve the tube as desired and also to change radius of the tube a curve points.
The can be used in many creative ways.
