STEP BY STEP UV UNWRAP ON AN IPAD WITH NOMAD SCULPT
01 OPEN THE MODEL TO UNWRAP
Either import or sculpt a model in Nomad Sculpt. It doesn’t need to be painted as the painting will all be done in Procreate onto the final texture maps. If you have separate parts you will need to name each layer and we will create a map for each one. An example might be a head with separate eyes and glasses.
02 DECIMATE THE MODEL
Decimation remakes a model’s geometry at a lower polygon count. UV unwrapping is best done on models lower than 100k polygons according to the Nomad interface, so ideally we need to bring the polycount down using the Decimate slider in the Topology menu. Specify the target triangle count, then hit Decimate and check the polygon count.
03 ATLAS UNWRAP
The Nomad unwrap tool is called ‘Atlas Unwrap’ and there aren’t many
controls. You simply click the Atlas unwrap button in that same panel and it unfolds the model and shows you an example of the result in the viewport. Make sure you change your background to black or you may not see it very well. The model is textured with a sample image using different coloured blocks to help you see the mapping and the breaks in the unwrap. Do this to all models in the scene.
04 EXPORT TO PROCREATE
Export it as an OBJ and save it somewhere that you can access from Procreate. Open Procreate and use import and navigate to the model. If the UVS are applied you will see the model in the document window. Now you can use all the different Procreate brushes and paint on the 3D model as simply as if it were 2D. Remember each model that you exported is a different map, so you need to click on the one you want to paint on (it highlights blue for a second).