Video summary

Nomad Sculpt: Camera Navigation

Main summary

Key takeaways

Educational

Main ideas / concepts

  • Purpose of the tutorial: Review and refine camera navigation in Nomad Sculpt on iPad.
  • Goal setup: A simple scene (a cube) is used as a visual reference for where the camera is pointed.
  • Core principle: Use touch gestures to move/rotate the camera, and reserve the stylus for sculpting to prevent accidental sculpting.

Camera navigation methodology (gestures + behavior)

  • Rotate camera

    • One finger: Tap and drag on the background to rotate.

  • Pan

    • Two fingers: Drag to pan the view.

  • Zoom

    • Pinch (with two fingers) to zoom in/out.

  • Avoid accidental sculpting while navigating

    • If you tap on a mesh, sculpting operations activate.
    • To prevent this while using fingers:
      • Go to the Pressure menu
      • Scroll to Interactions
      • Assign interactions to only “finger” and “stylus” (so camera navigation with fingers doesn’t trigger unwanted sculpting).
    • Preference: Touch gestures = camera movement, Stylus = sculpting.

Camera options and controls (as described)

  • Top menu camera controls

    • Reset view

      • Returns the camera to a front view
      • Focuses on all objects in the scene.

    • Quick access buttons

      • A set of buttons for faster camera actions.
      • If the icon isn’t found: enable it via the Interface menu.

    • Snap

      • Moves the camera to a specific side view (example given: a perfect right view after snapping).
      • This snap action is also available in the bottom quick access buttons.

    • Flip

      • If you have already snapped to a view, tapping Flip again will mirror the camera view to the opposite side.

    • Top view / bottom view via snap + snap again

      • Snap to top view, then snap a second time to look at the bottom.

Camera projection modes and parameters

  • Perspective vs Orthographic

    • Orthographic: no perspective distortion.
    • Perspective: shows convergence of parallel lines (visual distortion toward a vanishing point).

  • FOV (Field of View)

    • Higher FOV number = more distortion/convergence.
    • Default FOV is 25.
    • Guidance: do not sculpt with FOV higher than 25 (as recommended in the tutorial).

Rotation mode behavior

  • Rotation modes

    • Orbit (default): preferred.
      • Tutorial reasoning: maintains better control.
    • Trackball: offers more freedom, including the ability to roll using two fingers.
      • Tutorial warning: rolling/control may get unstable/easy to lose control.

  • Safety reset

    • If rotation gets “too crazy,” use the camera reset capability.

Camera motion speed

  • Speed
    • Controls acceleration/deceleration of camera movement.

Focus gestures (double-tap)

  • Double-tap on an object

    • Camera focuses on the tapped point of the object.
    • If it doesn’t work, it’s because the option isn’t enabled in the relevant menu.

  • Double-tap on the background

    • Shifts focus based on the selected object.
    • If nothing is affected as expected, ensure the option is active in the menu.
    • If the tutorial option is deactivated, double-tapping the background returns to viewing the entire scene (all objects).

Pivot concept (reference point for rotation)

  • Pivot = pink dot

    • Appears as a reference point for camera rotation.
    • Its position is relative to objects in the scene.

  • Default pivot updating

    • Pivot updates by:
      • Double-tapping on the model, or
      • Using two-finger gestures on top of an object (pink dot appears between fingers).

  • Limiting pivot updates

    • Two options exist to control how pivot updates.
    • Tutorial preference: keep them active.

  • Hiding the pivot

    • Pivot can be removed by:
      • Display settings
      • Disable show small dot.

Speakers / sources featured

  • Erica Kasab (Small Robot Studio) — presenter/author of the tutorial voiceover and instruction source.

Original video