Wonderful app, amazing what you have here. Suggestions for the reference image, which I don’t think should be too much work speaking as a developer myself (famous last words )
Usually reference images, for a say a figure, have a front and a side pose. Common to have two copies of the reference image, on as the backdrop for the front view, the other for the left view (the side profile). With Nomad the reference image is always orthogonal to the view port. Making the reference image a scene object, and allowing front and side views, allows us to get the reference for the two views and model against it
This would solve the second problem, which is a reference image always has the same aspect ratio, which is useless as you zoom in and out. The trick to get around it is to have a fixed camera view, or rather two you flip between. But if the image was a scene object it wouldn’t matter, as it would scale as you zoom.
Finally I created a new scene and found the reference image as set up with the new file. Really odd as I’d only use the image typically once for the project/file I’m working on. I don’t want it part of any other file I might work on which will have it’s own reference images. Again making it a scene object would solve this.
It shouldn’t be much effort I hope, as basically it’s just a plane with the image as a texture. Thoughts?
Hi DrM! I personally don’t see the reference images being non-scalable too much of a bother, I tend to generally leave them off Nomad and have them running on a monitor / TV screen for an unobstructed, larger view as I model. But that’s me, I could see a reference image feature like that being useful to some but still not as tantalising as external methods. A split view port would be useful in some scenarios, but not everyone uses Nomad on large tablet screens, some on small android devices, there’d be a lot of visual noise for some with that enabled. It’s not always obvious to new or lesser experienced users as well how to disable/switch between functions like that (if split viewport were a function already) or what it’s for. Frankly I don’t miss that ability or pine for it either. Extra work to add that in when not a lot of people would be using it essentially. Models are so easy to rotate and view from all perspectives anyway. That’s just my input, I’m sure others will jump in on this thread - welcome to the community bud!
Agree there’s many workflows. This one is not uncommon though, and it’s used in the popular Nomad courses by Glen Southern (Southern GFX Creative) which brings many people into Nomad including me. I use this workflow in Blender too, as do many others.
If you want to keep the present approach, a way to help us who model against actual dimensions like this would be to allow views to be pinned on the top level toolbars. I get around the issue by having two camera views set for the front and side, and keep the camera drop always visible, and tap to switch between the two. But that big camera drop down covers a lot of screen real estate. If there was a ‘quick change’ way to switch cameras that would be helpful.
Oh yeah, definitely. Glenn’s very good at 3D design, no denying that; he teaches the same method used in regular industry - which is good for beginners who don’t understand the many avenues and branches 3d pipelines go and need some grounding. Its a classic workflow setup born from desktop keyboard + mouse interaction, where 3d has its root, and viewport camera’s are stupidly useful because you just cant interact with the model like on a modern tablet device. I just see the developments onto tablets the next step in 3d design, because we can interact with the screen directly so easily I find its a newer, easier approach born from technology we werent privy to when this industry started. Also depends what you’re building and what pipeline your model will end up in, also critical to how its built. I’ve been doing 3d work for 15+ years, this change in commercial scenery is welcome to me. I can imitate Industrial Light & Magic’s work from 1993 Jurassic Park on my just iPad Pro on a park bench - that says a lot about the current landscape. Because what they used was the size of my cooker. This kind of UI is not just limited to Nomad, others follow suit. At the end of the day, abilities like view ports were implemented to make it easier for the designer, so they won’t be so crap at their job translating objects into three dimensions, it’s a helper - not a rule of thumb in my opinion. Speeds up modelling process for industry work. Do completely get your points also, it was just my input. I’ve adapted my skills enough by now that I’m not so reliant on classic methods, but everyone’s unique with their approach which is further driven by experience. Obviously the more functions a 3D suit offers the better, but what I can pull off in Nomad/3d sculpting software without any of these classic features suits me just fine for my profession and art with a higher work output than when I was on more complex suits like 3DS Max. Again, that’s just me! I might just be the exception and not the rule. Nice to shoot the breeze, I enjoy a good debate! Good luck with your Nomad use man
Hm, I don’t see that. For ease of use and speed I find a desktop 3Dconnexion enterprise in the left hand, tablet on the right, and a huge screen (I use the Eizo square) placed ergonomically correctly works easiest and is fastest. The left hand is continuously moving around the model as I wish while the right pen hand does what it needs, and there’s plenty of keys on the 3Dconnexion to remesh, change tools, etc instantly. But if I happened to prefer the pinch zoom style my Wacom pro gestures work great, and there’s plenty of screen tablets which support that (though the Cintique isn’t so good, I’m waiting for a newer version which does).
With the iPad, in addition to a smeary screen, we’re constantly poking around switching here and there for functions, zooming and such. Not to mention the biggest which is screen size, I doubt these tablets will get much larger than 12" diagonal. But it has the great advantage which is we can get away from the desk, which is huge with the hours we put in, so I got the new M1 and am learning Nomad.
I think we’re mostly in violent agreement, other than I don’t think a fixed side snap view is obsolete - just another tool. Nomad image handling is just inconvenient for me because it treats a reference image as kind of an HDRi - a background that doesn’t scale with viewport. But I recognize its good if you just want something to look while you work and don’t have a second screen (I have my older iPad for that purpose)
That’s fair - I can agree to that for desktop supported hardware - Wacom are specialised for that, but it’s a very costly setup for enterprise level hardware, which is going to another field entirely. For average commercial use, iPads are next to none. Especially with Apple’s latest hardware. The iPad screen could be better - MiniLED and OLED will absolve that, hopefully without burn-in, LG & Samsung panels are good enough and other than the oleophobic coating being crap, I’d say they’re probably better LCD panels than what Wacom use, they might just use better coating and thicker tempered glass so less fingerprint smudge and doesnt bend like wafer. I’m not doubting you understand your workflow, at all, lol violent agreement is better than disagreement, 3D workflow is so vast, we all take different paths but get the same results. Do you cycle to work or get a train, different journeys same destination! Apple’s M hardware is critical to my thinking of the future of 3d work, realising how well my iPad handles these tasks, again it’s another division, a new split in 3d workflows, portable is power now - desktop hardware will always be the grand daddy, but thoroughly more complex to learn, and still in the realm for the extreme. Apps like Nomad open 3D design up to everyone, people who would shy away from a computer and pop their eyes in fear when staring at Blender’s interface will suddenly grab their stylus or start sculpting with their finger for shits and giggles. A new age, a new future for emerging 3D artists. This is why I like to jump in on threads, irregardless of the difference in thought were all 3d designers here so topical discussions like this are useful and frankly healthy for our education lol.
Just to tag on the end; all Apple would need to do is decide that a 16” iPad Pro with an M chipset + 32/64gigs of RAM (oh we know they could do that if they wanted) just needs to be sat at a desk physically powered through the wall outlet on a stand and we’ll have a product that will kick the dogs knackers to the moon and back for 3d enterprise design. They obviously won’t do that though, too good a product, too much to lose on revenue from selling ipads and macs independantly.
Too much text for less time, but:
Reference image is saved with camera view.
Make a view for front with according ref and save it, next side etc. etc. now you can switch between cams and different ref pics.
There is no texture in Nomad, only vertex painting. If you have enough ram, subdivide a plane, load a texture, paint on plane, then next view.
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