Archive notice: This article was originally published on 13 August 2020. It has been translated from German and lightly edited for clarity while preserving its historical context.
Mobile sculpting workflow
Former Sketchfab developer Stéphane Ginier released Nomad as a sculpting application for iPad and Android tablets. Artists can build characters on a touchscreen and export results as OBJ or glTF files for further work in another DCC application.
The interface supports touch input and the iPad stylus. Its brush set includes Clay, Crease, Move, Flatten and Smooth tools, while dynamic tessellation provides a workflow comparable to sculpting systems in ZBrush or Mudbox. A vertex-paint system handles surface colour.
Layers and rendering
Nomad supports PBR rendering and can light a sculpt with a custom HDR environment. Both sculpting and painting are layer-based, allowing edits to remain separated as the model develops.
Creature artist Glen Southern compared Nomad with Javier Edo’s Forger and found both applications useful. At the time of publication, Nomad cost US$13.99; current pricing may differ. Further details are available on the official Nomad website. Test export scale, topology density and material transfer before relying on the app in production.
