Not exactly new to digital sculpting. I’ve been using the original free Sculptris (not the zbrush version) for quite a while. But, they also completely deleted the forums over there.
Wasn’t too sure about Nomad to start with. It just didn’t seem like it could be as powerful, or as easy to use, as the reviews suggested. Plus I also wasn’t too sure how easy it would be to use this pencil for sculpting as I’ve grown quite accustomed to using my keyboard and mouse for such a long time. Yeah, I was certainly wrong. This program is certainly changing my mind about using this iPad a lot more now.
There’s pretty much just one thing that is missing so far. Height and cavity painting. Of course I’d also like some hair options in the future, but I think this should keep me busy for a long time to come as is.
So, I spent a bit of time doodling, getting used to the tools, and setting everything up to where it feels good. Just continued adding and watching the poly count keep rising and still never slowing down. This is what ended up coming out of that bit of time between jobs for work.
I still need to import my alphas, but even without them, this is still pretty fun.
Not sure if I’m the best person to explain it, but I’ll try.
It’s similar to two kinds of processes for painting real sculptures that I’ve seen online. One would be like dry brushing where the paint only hits the peaks of certain areas and leaving the creases as the base color (height painting that falls off based on the size and opacity of the brush, so the higher it is the more paint gets applied).The second is painting the whole area, but then going over it with a wash cloth to pull the paint off of those same peaks (cavity painting that automatically paints in just the creases also based on the size and opacity of the brush). Can’t necessarily say that I’ve used them correctly as I’m certainly no professional, nor is it the worst thing in the world without it as an option, but it is a much faster way to paint in certain areas to accentuate facial wrinkles, cloth folds, patina, dust, etc.
For under 10 minutes, I’d say it should work more than well enough. There’s a lot in here to keep me more than busy enough that I won’t mind waiting for it to be added when you’re ready.
And here’s another quick doodle. Though the detailing certainly took a bit of time. I’m not used to having a poly budget this high that I can just keep sculpting away at as many tiny details as I want. I’m loving it.
Painting/brushing in cavities or, conversely, on geometry peaks with a fading intensity of effect outside of those zones on the geometry is an amazing way to paint detail and emphasis. I used to do that a lot on zBrush but I didn’t like the way it was implemented at the time (this was about 10 years ago, so I don’t know if they improved the brush/tools that did this)
While I’ve done a few quick sculpts over the last couple of days, I kind of wanted to go a bit further out of my comfort zone with this next one. Going to need a lot of random bits and bobs to start with before I start getting more specific with individual needed parts. Here’s some gears, screws and bolt heads, etc. that I was able to get done so far.
No alphas, and I haven’t used the triplanar primitive button yet so I’m not yet sure what to do with that.
Most of the main shapes were made with some pretty simple booleans (well, except for the Phillips head hole and the bolt head rounded off edges. Those did have a couple of additional Boolean steps, but still fairly simple). One thing to note for anyone starting with voxel merge is that you should always increase the voxel remeshing resolution to a higher setting before hitting voxel merge to keep most edges nice and crisp for these booleans.
Getting the radial symmetry was actually pretty easy to do as well with the tools in there. Setting the Gizmo to a set degree really helped. I think I saw it in one of the videos someone had made for hard surface. There were a few times that I had to set one of the teeth for the gears in place and mirror it so the combined shape had the gizmo centered properly. After that, just a quick duplicate and rotate with the gizmo settings had them all in quite nicely before the merge.Though a box to type in the degree setting could be helpful in the future. I know I passed my number a couple of times with this Apple Pencil. I’m still getting used to it.
@CarlMcraven Thanks. This is the first I’ve spent any time trying hard surface as well. From what I’ve seen so far, as long as you just focus on smaller curves or sections of the primitives (or even simple created shapes), you can create just about most surfaces. Though I’d need a lot more time with some different kinds of sculpts since I really don’t know where a lot of the limits are yet.
Haven’t had a lot of time over the last few days, but here’s a quick update on where I’m going with this next one. Just the head for now. Trying for a kind of steampunk insect. Not sure yet if I’ll go towards a beetle or I was thinking more of a wasp as well. Only used a couple of the previous shapes, but more could be used later in the body and legs.
Still plugging away at this little guy when I get time. Trying to find some middle ground between mechanical engineering and just slapping on some gears in random areas that don’t do anything. Hopefully, when it’s done, it will at least seem somewhat plausible. A few more little things to add into this body area before moving on to the tail. Leaving the legs and wings for last.
While I’ve renamed a lot of these objects and merged objects, with this many total objects, it can be a bit interesting to keep track of everything in a single list. Would it be possible to get a way to group/folder sets of objects in the future? Before attempting a sculpt of this nature, I don’t think I would have had this problem for a while.
It has already been requested a few times so I’ll probably do it at some point.
But I prefer to be careful with things that might make the interface more complex.
Understandable with keeping a certain level of complexity in mind. Just one of those extra niceties that could be helpful for sculpts that have a lot of parts to keep track of. It’s not that it can’t be done without it, or that it’s too difficult figuring out which part goes where, and you seem to have a lot of other bigger ideas currently in the works. Besides, this is just a fun hobby for me, so I’m in no rush.
Bit more fun with this one. Those rough edges will be dealt with eventually. I did switch to PBR shading though. The metallics show up a lot better I think. Still a good ways to go, but I’m enjoying the ride so far.
Very nice indeed.
I agree about the grouping thing. It’s really essential.
I have also met a memory problem when trying to render my projects in 4K. The “squaliens” project just bombed out when I tried to render anything over screen resolution. I only have a sixth gen standard IPad though. I think something to make tubes/snakelike shapes etc would be good too, and maybe a bend function.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks Adam and stephomi. I always wanted to try something in that genre, but Sculptris never would have been able to handle it. It was also missing a lot of tools that never were able to be implemented once pixologic bought it from the creator.
I did plan to finish up more of that last one, but I started with a new sphere last night and created a simple head. When I opened it back up today I kept going with the rest of the body between calls instead of finishing up the wings of the wasp. This is roughly about where Sculptris would start slowing down, so I didn’t get too many chances to really flesh out a character. I’ve still got a whole lot of ram left, so I’ll be switching back and forth between this one and the wasp.
Most of the main forms are in but there’s still a lot of things left to do. Not going to get too detailed in every area yet since I’m still not sure exactly where he wants to be taken.
