Knackis Quick Nomad Tips 🖖

[Bezzo]

I had my suspicions that this would be the case

[John_Mills]

Sculpt in the evenings with a red light (I use a colour changing bulb in my home office) - then you can turn the iPad brightness screen down to zero - the screen is still super bright at 0 in this spectrum of light (seriously bright, its astonishing), the home environment is still easily seen (bit like photography dark room just brighter) and the battery save on the device is phenomenal even when using the device intensely. This also doesn’t upset or deteriorate damage to the eyes as bad due to the screen light>environment lighting contrast (spent years staring at glaring bright CRT monitors in pitch dark, not good). I’m very wary about battery replacements in the iPad, and mobile 3D work is one thing that can ensure a severely degraded set of lithium cells within a year or so of daily creative use. It’s expensive to think about replacing (AppleCare + is the only reservedly ‘cheap’ way to do it), so it’s always on the back of my mind whenever I have to use up another recharge cycle (x1000 per new device as Apple’s rating).

Just to add; this red environment/0 brightness setup also keeps the full colour on your iPad screen because you do not need to enable Night Shift - which is good for everything except art where precise colours are important.

[knacki]

What I forgot……try transform tool with your fingers. It‘s fun and more flexible than Gizmo, but a bit challenging to get used to. Two & one finger.

[r_moseley_art]

[knacki]

This time no direct Nomad tips but useful online companions I found to create different primitives not available in Nomad.

These were done with little online apps from Andrewmarsh.com
The most interesting is

Polyhedron Generator

And
Supershape
Is also cool.

I never used the IPadOS “add to Home Screen” function of Safari, but these are worth to have as one press icons to fire up. If you want to have this quick access, use little square with upright arrow as for bookmark and choose “add to homesscreen” an icon on your iPad will show up, like for an app.

Polyhedron is the tool I like to introduce very quickly.
On the very left you have “Base polyhedron” tap below on downward arrow and choose “Show all”
Beneath you can choose the base primitive you would like to have…

If you go down to operator stacks you have a bunch of operators you can affect your primitive with. Hollow is one, you all will love. But you can combine all. Try it, you’ll have fun!

Once you are happy you choose the EXP Icon in top Center and choose Nomad for direct export import, or export obj to files for later import in Nomad.
So much fun!!!

[ToBe]

Could you please explain in more details the steps with the stone wall? I don’t get it, how you’va done that Sorry

[knacki]

This is very easy.
Generally said.

• add a layer to an high poly object
• add details with an alpha
• use DelLayer brush to edit transitions between details and original

That’s the general idea. You can use it for anything. DelLayer brush erases the layer effect, so you don’t have to have the border structure in your alpha as well. It is cool for so many different things. Just play with it. Fun!

[Mark_Harrison]

Some really brilliant tips here, new to nomad Sculpt, well, sculpting in general, been learning the ropes.

[knacki]

Place objects exactly on planar surfaces of other objects.

Create the object you want to place, move the pivot with activated transform tool at exact bottom of your object. now choose the insert tool and choose clone. clone will take active object. if you drag now onto another object, the clone will be placed exactly on it’s surface according to normals direction (normals are perpendicular on every polygon face to define visible and invisible side)
Well, theoretically a bit confusing…I’ll try to make a vid.

Tap, hold & drag to rotate object before release

[knacki]

Timelapse recording

There is a workaround, but you need to do it every time before closing the app, and you have to have a look on your undo history as it is not saved with your file.

Have a look at undo history settings. Maybe you find increasing undos is working well with your device capacity.

If this is done, you can work till your undo history is filled to it’s limit, or you want to finish and close Nomad for this day.

Before, start screen recording and tap through your history.

Remember:
History is not saved
Closing iPad can lead Nomad to reload. It is recommended in any case to save your file, but you will loose your undo history. So it is a must to record!

It can be some fun!

[knacki]

Long time no post. Lounge is wrong category, but when I started this thread, the tutorial category was not alive

Combining tubes with repeater curve to generate Celtic knots.
Result

Workflows

[Josepmy]

Really cool, nice tip

[knacki]

It’s fun as well Keep repetitive part small and unconnected, then it is working quite nicely.
Without auto welding etc. connected parts like braid are very difficult to turn out nice with actual options.

[knacki]

Have you guys ever used PBR Materials with SCREEN PROJECT in alpha menu?
Download PBR Material.
Clone brush.
Rename.
Select height material for alpha
Below alpha choose screen project.
Put mid value on 0,5
Go to texture / paint
Increase paint intensity to something like 2.5
Go to material slots
Use albedo for color
For roughness use Roughness & same with Metallic.
Under pressure deactivate size & intensity
We use intensity slider to control intensity for average of our stroke to apply same intensity everywhere.
As long as you don’t lift your pencil, you’ll continuously add seamless texture.

After lifting, do not zoom, and try to use pencil from same angle, as there is no angle lock for screen project. This should help to get better transitions to stroke before.

[knacki]

MASKING SHORTCUTS AND TRICKS

Hi guys!
Let’s collect all masking shortcuts you know for us.
Too useful to be forgotten!

Here my collection:

You can enter masking in two ways:

• Via shortcut on left side
• Via tool menu and tap on mask brush or SelMask tool, or any custom mask tool you made.

Basics with any masking tool active

• Invert mask = Tap on free space
• Blur mask = Tap on masked area
• Sharpen mask = Tap on unmasked area.
• Clear mask = with SelMask active mask on empty screen. With mask brush active, tap and hold on empty screen to switch to SelMask then drag and release.
• Swap masking mode = Hold pencil on screen to swap from brush to SelMask and vice versa
• Select / deselect object elements = just tapping on it. If an object consists of multiple elements, let’s say three spheres you joined to one object, with any masking tool active tap on one object to select it. Tap again to deselect.

Mask shortcut button offers two modes:

1. Tap mask shortcut to switch to masking - this will activate mask brush.
   The button changes color to show it is active.
   Remember! You can always switch mode from brush to SelMask via pencil hold on screen.

2. Hold mask button to temporarily enter SelMask mode, release and you’ll switch back to last used tool

• Fastest way to clear mask by selecting empty

• While holding mask button with thumb, you can change mode from lasso to square etc. i.e. with index finger. Except polygon, last selected mode will be active again when holding mask button, including unmask.

SelMask toolbar: tap on little arrow pointing to right to open little menu

• uncheck auto validate if you want to move and stamp created mask
• drag inside white mask area preview to move mask. Same with drag green point.
• Stamp mask with tap on white mask preview area. Same with tap on green point.
• Polygon specials = always no auto validate & you can keep on editing mask while moving and stamping. When you start with lasso and switch to poly, you can edit your lasso mask. Same for circle etc.
• The other options like centre, circle, snap from mini menu are self explaining.

Good to know:
above SelMask options are same for all tools using this menu, like trim, split, project and select.

Anything missing?

Ahh - the menu settings I forgot.
ProcreateFX made a video about masking, for those who forgot how to read

Nomad Sculpt - Video Manual - 24 - Mask - Gestures & Shortcuts - Tutorial (V1.78 - 1.7.2023)

His problems with clear mask came because Auto validate was switched off. You have to validate a mask in empty space to clear mask.

Here is a tiny video about the positive options when auto validate is switched off. You can edit any shape, from lasso to ellipse if you switch to poly after.

[knacki]

Short on memory?
Your stats are all red and sculpting get sluggish or Nomad really crashes due to low memory?

Here are some points that might help:

Inside Nomad:

0. Backup!

make a back up before.
Save your project then use save as & new and give your project a new number / name.
Maybe you want to go back and tweak some high detail parts and import them on your reduced project later. Back ups are always good.

1. Purge undo history

What is a good idea, if you are at memory limit, is to purge undo history. I guess there is no function for this, but save and reload project should do the trick. Undo should be on 0. This frees some memory.

2. Decimate finished parts

use decimate, not voxel remesh to reduce polycount. This will save your details very well. If you wan to 3D print, turn off „smooth shading“ As a 3D printing artist you want to see if polygons are getting too big and visual in final print.

3. Merge layers

If no longer needed, or when you have no other chance, merge layers before. To do this, go to layers menu and tap on three line icon with little arrow pointing down. And due to point 0 you have a backup you can go back to. With save and checking „selected only“ you can save just one part later and with „add to scene“ load it to your reduced project again.

4. Use new Boolean instead voxel remesh

If you want to union two objects into one solid mesh, you used voxel remesh with high poly count not to loose detail.
No need to voxel merge since Nomad 1.79. You can do a boolean union without detail loss.

On your ipad outside Nomad:

1. Closing anything else on ipad is always a good idea on any device, specially on those with low RAM. Really closing by double press home button and swipe up any other app, except Nomad in older devices. Or slowly drag upwards on newer devices till you see all tabs. Then swipe up anything else than Nomad.

2. It can happen that you gain some extra MB by restarting your ipad. Or hard restart by long press home and the other button on older devices or side button & loudness on newer devices …I guess

Good to know:

One object with high poly eats more memory, than many objects having same amount of poly in total.

[knacki]

A quick one.
Creating glass and fitting liquid with lathe and clone.

1. Create the glass
2. Duplicate glass object. Delete all outer points but keep those of inner glass surface and add one point for liquid top.

This way, you can stay super flexible till you are really happy with your glass shape. As liquid is done in seconds, a change or variation is super easy.

In my example, the surface of my liquid was flipped, visible as different color. If so, go to material and choose “inverse culling”.

[knacki]

Creating perfect straight line tube, square tube and not totally perfect closed circle tubes!
You need an validated object to select SelMask tool. Or any other tool that generates lines, circles rectangles.
Uncheck auto validate.
Use line tool with snap to 90 degree
Draw line, do not validate, but switch to tube tool and choose path.
Voilà.
Same for rectangle but with circles there can be an issue.
Sometimes it is working after tapping on start end point.

When switching from line to square, first path is kind of crazy.
Select “closed” and go back to SelMask and do path again. Now it should work.

[McGurk78]

Very interesting. I tried it. Works like a charm. Is this intended behavior?

[knacki]

Stéphane is aware of this and made this possible. But I would not call it latest super official mega function. More a tolerated workaround.
I never tried line before but this solves all straight tube issues.

NEXT TIP!!!
It works for any tool using this set btw. Unchecking auto validate is a good thing.
So you can draw something with polygon or lasso tool in split I.e.
Execute with taping into your polygon, or on green dot.
Switch from split to trim when polygon is still active.
Polygon disappears but now tap on polygon again and shape is back

Correction, it works with every tool but curve repeater.
This is partly good, as curve repeater is an ongoing unvalidated object. I will ask for a extra condition that path will taken only, when curve repeater is created new…even though 2D, it could be interesting to have an exact 2D curve of a trim I.e. for curve repeater…