Features to bring it closer to industry standard

[Mokosha]

As a long time zbrush user in the gaming and movie industry i think there are a couple of things missing to be close to the industry standard. I’ll just put them down here so maybe we will get them in the future. I know a lot of people that would switch if those features came to nomad.

Missing:

1. Displacement bake like in zbrush, which is easy to use and exports EXR 32 bit maps. UDIMS for that would be nice too.
2. Zmodeller brush, for hard surface modeling in zbrush, a lot of people enjoy zbrush for hardsurface sculpting (including me ) and its usefull for editing low poly geo before adding subdivs.
3. Zremesher that comes with the program not like a plugin. Including “keep polygroups” option for indicating where the topo should flow.
4. Morph brush like in zbrush, a tool you can’t do production work without it.
5. Some kind of QuadDraw brush that lets you do manual retopo. Really usefull for hardsurface or retopo in general.
6. Custom menu that you can summon on a hotkey, where you can put which ever things you use the most.
7. Mask options. Masking features like mask by cavity, mask edges, mask borders, etc,etc….

Thats all that came to my mind while using the demo version on pc. Sculpting is smooth, but it has some clanky things like brush indicator moving to the left while scaling the size of it and things like that.

Really would like to see this program improve. Hope I helped out with those suggestions to bring it closer to industry standard.

Edit: If I missed something, feel free to add it in the comments.
Edit again hah: Wont let me keep the solid color background after restarting the program it changes back to gradient.

[Jurre_de_Groot]

Nomad might be a little ways off from replacing industry standard tools, but it sure as hell is great for all around general sculpting! And keep in mind it’s only 1 guy haha!

(You might need to try the new beta versions for some of these options, I dont know how much the DEMO version has!!!)

3 ZRemesh algorithm is there on the iPad for only 15 bucks, but on the Desktop you will need to pay Exoside, which is a lot more sadly.

6 You can definitely create custom menus with all sorts of buttons, icons and other stuff!
Then in the bindings menu you can set them to a hotkey!

7 I’d love more masking options too, like increase or decrease mask.

[Mokosha]

Hey,

I agree, but those are some of my suggestions, as a long time sculptor I’ve tried custom menu but its limited what you can add, couldnt find a way to add those smoothing/inflate operations I’ve sent belove that i use in my normal workflow, and Projection options. Kinda wish it would be drag and drop like in zbrush, so you can add all the options that you need.

Thanks for the info that i can hotkey menus, helped a lot, but still for a faster workflow i need a lot of things inside of them. Btw is there a dev log whats coming next like for blender or something like that?

But displacement bake and morph brush is a must for highfreq details.

I know that its only one guy making it and i didnt mean to insult him or something, just saying whats needed so it becomes closer to industry standard.

[Jurre_de_Groot]

Yeah I get all of that! It’s a good list to get it more industry ready.

I’m sure we’re getting better and more beefy updates in the future, they will just take time.

I also believe once bigger updates roll out there will be some sort of list with new updates, but as for smaller beta changes they’re not usually accompanied by dev posts currently. Whenever I see an update, I update Nomad asap and try to find out what has changed

Keep in mind I’m not connected to Nomad in any way so take it all with a large grain of salt hahaha! I am basically just guessing

[Jurre_de_Groot]

@Mokosha

But displacement bake and morph brush is a must for highfreq details.

I haven’t tried this, so maybe I am spouting nonsense, but a hacky way to use a sort of morph brush is using a duplicate of your model, baking that on top of the layer system, and going from there? I haven’t tried layers too much but I’ve heard they’re very refined in Nomad

You can also try to bake down details into decimated versions of the high poly mesh to optimize Nomad scenes, but again this isn’t industry standard, just cool ways to get high quality detail for lower size Nomad scenes.

[Mokosha]

Its a bit more complicated than that Morphs are usualy used with layers so you get better blends from alphas that are usually baked to different layers. They can fix fuckups from imported displacements from example Mari and many more things. Rly depending on the workflow you are going for… For realistic characters with a lot of UDIMS its a must.

[knacki]

As a long time zBrush hater I have a suggestion as well: Put the few bucks on the table and learn more Nomad. Nomad has hundreds of features and workarounds you can find in hours what would take ages in zBrush. Best use Nomad on a touch device and learn all finger gestures. Soon, you will hate when you have to go back to zBrush for these and that features.

Sure, Nomad it is not zBrush. How much have you paid for zBrush? How much is your subscription per month? How much is Nomad?

Saying an advice would be to integrate an external plug like Exoside zremesher as an improvement, which is itself for other apps 5 times more expensive than Nomad, is not a suggestion it’s outrageous, to be honest.

Nomad developed so much, getting more and more features faster than any app, but it’s main feature is:

Anyone can do magic in first hours.

I wasted so many years with zBrush, I completely lost joy in digital sculpting.

In Nomad, you look on a beautiful rendering while sculpting.

Btw. I know probably 10 persons in the world who are able to do decent renders directly in zBrush. One is michalis, who disappeared a long time ago. Maybe less

You know why? The zBrush render engine is an attack against mankind, as it is zBrush UI.

You can always have more features, but any feature means nothing without fun.

There are a bunch of professionals here and on Discord starting with early iPad version.

It must be very tiring for the developer to read all fancy feature requests again and again now, after PC version has released.

And always remember - Nomad is best with touch device - and it’s pure fun.

One will see it in your sculpts, when you are smiling while sculpting.

[Mokosha]

No need to get defensive about it.

You need to keep in mind that i am working as a profesional in the AAA industry, paying for zbrush because it brings me back money, paying for a year sub is nothing in compare how much money it gives back. Its like 5 days of work to pay for zbrush, mari, maya, marmoset, wrap3d and other programs used in a pipeline for a year.

No one is talking about rendering in zbrush or anything like that, renders like arnold, redshift, vray, cycles even UE5 are superior to any sculpting software render and thats ok.

My suggestions were not ment to be tiring or anything like that, but i think that a program that is not ready to use in a pipeline is not worth even if its for free no matter how good the sculpting feels
Things i said are only the scratch what nomad is missing.

For example i switched to Affinity Photo and it did the same job as Adobe Photoshop, So i think Affinity is worth it.

So, calm yourself and dont comment if you dont know how industry pipelines and workflows work

[Justwatchin9_OnDaInn]

the more I see professionals want to see nomad become more like zbrush reminds me why the app only cost $15 and will probably never become an industry tool that will disrupt the other industry tools so im thankful for that aspect of nomad use case, however I can be a supporter of additional paid addons that could add up to a price that could compete with zbrush pricing without the subscription based pricing. yes id love for nomad to have polygonal modeling so bad that id be willing to pay whatever they charge. $30? no problem take my money. cloth simulation? take it all. so what we have right now is essentially nomadcore which in its current form is better than zbrushcore. and im happy with where its at. but ill tell you 1 thing, the feature is what makes it a winner for mobile users is its ui and it serves as its strongest foundation compared to ZB, which has its most veteran users still frustrated. but if the developer can bring other devs on board to bring industry features on nomad it’ll for sure get much more expensive. so if that happens and all the plugins add up to roughly $400 ill still take it, because its likely that I probably wont buy all of them, they’d be released in increments with update schedules and nomad would definitely be way more attractive option with its business model. maxon can’t touch it, adobe has their own version so nomad would be in a great place without having to sub, while pleasing all of its customers at different skill levels. this will also please desktop users because all the add-ons can’t be used on any tablet as you’ll need higher end devices. and that’s fine with me. I prefer sculpting on mobile and If I need to upgrade my device I’ll do it. ill trade in my base mpb and iPad Air for apple store credit towards an iPad Pro RIGHT NOW!!! but for the $30 I spent so far im so happy with what its capable of. And regardless of what features it’ll have in the future I hope it doesn’t stop here. so im not mad at anyone for wanting these things, I just think nomad is at the cusp of its toddler to kindergarten stage. and it just might be a while for it to move beyond.

[Mokosha]

I agree with that, with more industry standard tools the price should go up, thats fine, as long as i dont have to switch between 2-3 programs to do things. But manual retopo should be included inside any program for free, because manual retopo is far supirior to any automatic based retopos, because you can control the flow of the poligons and optimize it for animation and displacement bake in 32bit exr should always be included, as you have export for other maps, morph brush too…. And also, why are you all so defensive, all i did is say what its missing to be used in a profesional pipeline for movie/game ready characters, its because i rly want to see this program succed, its fun and its simple and almost everything needed is there. Didnt come here to hate or anything, i came here to give a couple of suggestions so i can maybe switch to nomad in the near future.

[Justwatchin9_OnDaInn]

well im not mad at anything you demand and from the other responses I read here I didn’t get that vibe either, maybe youre just enterpreting it that way. but I do get the feeling that many users don’t want nomad to be ready for the big leagues because they want an able program that will remain cheap and with a perpetual license, and an industry standard tool would be too intimidating for them. I personally am not one of those. if the Dev needed a subscription pledge $2-8/month I think that would be worth it. honestly if it were that way he’d have a whole industry tier app built by now. but I think he has always had the casual user in mind so he can work at his own pace. there is a polygonal version of nomad called valence but its in the baby stages still has a low maturity rate. these apps take time if youre a one man army, so both of these devs have a long way to go. maybe they can join forces and merge their apps, but for now ive heard that valence is still super buggy. blender on the other hand has announced that they are actively developing an iPad version so that might be the way to go since you want an all in one program. however I don’t think it will have sculpting mode out the box. id be surprised if It did. it will most likely be the core app at launch and will slowly build up to what it is now. well probably get that before nomad becomes the fiully functioning industry tool you want it to be.

[Mokosha]

I dont think its intimidating for no one, blender is becoming a software that is used more and more in the industry, so a free model with donations like they have is not bad at all, for example i pay them a small donation every time they put something in that i like. Payed for the 5.0 version couple of bucks because of ACES color spece, before that for simulation nods and so on and so on.

You can be independent get more people in and still make good tools for free and live off donations and some people are subscribed to blender too… Big companies donate to blender so they can integrate it into the industry. I payed for some addons for blender and i am happy with them. Would pay here too to have some zbrush tools, no problem like you said.

Bringing in tools that will standardise nomad is not bad, it will for sure pull more profesionals into it.

Btw i have nomad for a long time on my ipad and i rly dont enjoy sculpting on ipad, I am used to hotkeying everything, so i am only talking about the PC version.