Total Beginner - where to start

Hi guys,

my name is Sebastian Goller and I’m from Germany - so please excuse any “special treatment” of the english language.

Last Christmas Santa brought me a new tablet : Samsung Galaxy S7 FE. Not the shiniest toy in store but it has a huge display, 4 GB of RAM and it comes with a pen. And so one evening I spent browsing the Google Playstore for drawing apps and 3D stuff.
I’ve always been fascinated by 3D graphics. I have some minor experience with Blender 2.something but I never left the “doodle phase”. The major roadblock always has been spending hours in front of a computer, which I get plenty of during my days in the office. So that never was a real option for my evenings and weekends (not to mention, that my wife would kill me…).
I have already tried some 3D apps for Android on my previous tablet but truth to be told - they are all rubbish. So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon ZBrush-Mobile a.k.a. Nomad Sculpt. Here I have something that calls itself sculpting app and can’t even hold a candle to the original Sculptris. And over there suddenly there is an app, that easily handles millions of polygons, offers tremendous tools and simply towers over any other 3D app in the playstore. There is not even a contest anymore. And all that for 15 bucks? Knowing that there is a good chance I will be stuck in doodle limbo forever I bought the app just to support it.

@ Stéphane: Thank you so much for this tremendous app.

And now I sit here trying to get a grip on this monster. I’ve already watched a lot of tutorials from SouthernGfx and Small Robot Studios (+ some else). There is a lot of information to digest and since I do only have minor experience in 3D (+ I totally suck at any kind of arts), I’m not sure, where to begin. So here is the question:

How does a beginner like me start to dive into Nomad Sculpt?

There is a ton of tools but I’m sure that some of those are more fundamental than others. What should I focus on? I’m not talking about things to sculpt but techniques to use. Which brushes are the most important? What settings (in general and for said brushes) should I always have in mind? Are there any basic exercises I should try? Are there things to avoid at all costs?

Pick 4-5 tools to begin with - I’d recommend Brush > Crease > Drag/Move > Mask > Smooth for example (ithose 5 alone you can build a lot with, and will ground your understanding how the tools work - also experiment with them with Symmetry on and off) play with their setups on some mesh - how you essentially customise (most) tools will be the same process, this will help you get used to their internal parameters & results it produces on mesh. Keep the wireframe on your models so you can topologically gauge what you’re doing. Avoid relentlessly high subdivisions - keep an eye the vertices/faces count, less is more (work with the available polygons first before adding more, especially if they’re not needed) - and always keep track of the available RAM. Once you’re in the red, don’t drop below 1GB or you might encounter problems with saving. On your specific tablet, try to keep sculpts below 10M verts & faces as a threshold. MatCap shader for sculpting, switch the shader to PBR for some gnarly rendering abilities - Lights, Environment (HDRI) & Post Processing will make your model visually stand out. If you also switch your Camera to ‘Trackball’ you might find it easier to first begin interacting with your sculpt on scene (easier to break symmetry but for first learning & play in Nomad it’s useful camera setting - practice with dedicated symmetry + turntable camera after you’re versed a bit more (my personal approach only, can try other way round) - and tap on the Nomad icon in the top corner of the UI - for the dedicated ‘Turntable Mode’ (continuous, automatic rotation of the model on scene + 4-finger tap, you can also sculpt in this Mode) Good luck :+1:

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Willkommen!
Also zu den Ratschlägen:
Mach dich mit den Primitives schlau, pinne das Einstellungsmenü mit dem Reißnagel an und teste jede Division und jeden Regler VOR dem validieren und jedes Primitive - so erkennt man, dass man aus z.B. einem Torus auch einen viereckigen Rahmen machen kann….oder dass eine Kugel eigentlich ein Würfel ist.

Beginne die Primitives mit so wenigen Divisionen / Voxels wie möglich, erhöhen kannst du den Polycount ohne Probleme, reduzieren ist schwer. Also die standard Einstellungen fast immer reduzieren.

Nimm dir kleine Projekte vor: z.B: einen Normalen Stuhl, ein Ei mit Füßen und Gesicht, oder einen kleinen Kaktus …. keiner schafft einen T-Rex am Anfang.

Gewöhn dich nicht unbedingt an die Kaugummi-Technik, schau dir Blocking Videos an.

Wireframe ON.

Teste jeden Schalter oder Regler, es kann nichts passieren.

1000 weitere Punkte……:slightly_smiling_face:

Viel Spaß mit Nomad Sculpt.

Danke. Den werde ich hoffentlich dauerhaft haben. :slight_smile: Übrigens coole Videos auf Youtube.

@ John Mills
Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.

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Best advice I can give you.

Start small and realistic. And base it on things you can actually see… not from photos.

Set yourself a small goals… for example I’m going to sculpt this bottle on the table … I’m going to sculpt this stuffed toy.

Don’t worry about details… just try to focus on scale and proportion… also set yourself a time limit… say an hour max

Then do the sculpt … and move on

Do the same over and over (not the same objects … vary it up).

Also vary the goal … instead of scale and proportion… maybe try to get the texture of something

If you say … I’m going to sculpt a human barbarian warrior slaying an orc… and have no experience of doing so, you set yourself up for failure and frustration which ultimately can be deflating and put you off sculpting.

Software like nomad are just tools (really amazing tools), but you have to learn the fundamentals and to think in 3d first.

Just my opinion :slight_smile: … feel free to dismis it

Good luck
G

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