Nomad Sculpt 4+

Let me start with the positives. This software has so many capabilities that other similar softwares don’t. It is easy to work with, very customizable, and produces great quality renders at high numbers of faces. Easily the best software out there for the IPad Pro. One minor issue is that the software lacks the ability to more finely control the topology of models. Often i will find formations of quads that are unnecessary, or that meet in weird ways and create visible seams on my models upon smoothing. However, using dynamic topology is an easy workaround if the character you’re sculpting doesn’t need to be animated.

Materials could also use more customization options, and UVs would also be nice, but the main issue i have with this software is how much battery it drains. It drains battery so fast that even when plugged into the wall, the charging cannot keep up with the power demands.

Overall an amazing software (nearly on par with some professional sculpting softwares ive worked with before) but is not very optimized in terms of power usage.

Really well done. I find it much more approachable than ZBrush when I tried it way back when. This app is quite powerful with what it can do, and isn’t a massive overload of complexity. Only one thing that bothers me is when dealing with primitives, before ‘validate’ (strange word to use but ok), my tendency is to try to scroll the toolbar on the right vertically as I would scroll the usual modeling toolbar. Unfortunately this drags & rearranges the tools without any long press/jiggle or anything. I’d prefer long press to rearrange as is pretty standard UI design practice (and as is also the case for entries the Scene panel in Nomad).

Update: auto-save should just happen silently without a popup by default. Save a recoverable file that can be reloaded on launch if a crash was detected, like how MS Excel might do it, for example. If a crash was detected, prompt the user, explain that the app didn’t close properly; show a preview of the last auto-save and ask if they want to reload it. Unfortunately one of my kids was getting into Nomad, but found auto-save annoying & disabled it (not knowing you could just silence the popup), and lost her work due to a crash… so now she “hates” it. Ugh.

I held off on writing a review for awhile. Wanted to get the full experience of Nomad Sculpt. I’ve worked with Zbrush before so I came in with some sculpting experience. I have to say, I am in awe of this app. The power this program has to exist on an IPad is insane. I don’t get to sit down and work a lot, so I’m a big fan of procreate and the likes. This app is exactly what I’ve been dreaming of. Now of course there are it’s bugs and glitches and sometimes it’ll crash. But it’s running on an iPad, and that is a truly impressive feat. I work zbrush on my custom built computer, and after an hour it sounds like its going to take off. I can work hours on this app and the only thing stopping me is the iPad battery life. The app is gigantic, and needs a fair amount of storage but honestly, not as much as I thought for an app this powerful. If you’re a experienced sculptor or just wanting to start out, spend the money. Seriously, it’s worth it. I am excited to see how Nomad grows in the next few months. Seriously impressive, I cannot rave enough.