i recently got several nervous breakdowns while trying to model a really realistic looking rope. I found a lot of tutorials on youtube, be they all simply did hit the point (Textures plus hair or prodedural shaders …).
So, i decided to model a rope a it is: A three step bundle set of hairs. The First step is a simple cord, twisted from approx. 1000 single hairs. This first level cord is then taken into a second step bundle of say 100 to 200 cords.
The third and last step is to take three or four of these bundles and twist them again. Please see this reference image form wikipedia:
That’s the real life way. But i simply don’t get it in Blender. I either fail by not managing to twist and bundle a set of hairs, or i fail to let hair grow along a twisted path, and then twist the result again. I also tried the screw modifier on circular array copy of curves, but the result got over 100 million polygons and crashed blender awhole.
I thinkthe only way to achieve really photorealistic ropes is to use bundles hairs (not only frizzle hairs on top of a texture or procedural texture). I know that the model might get heavy on hair and polygon load, bu think its worth it.
I really need some help with this, because for my current project i need a rope in the main focus.
Hi LoboTommy,
thank you for the Group Instance Tip - but i think it will not work, since Group Instances are static. One you create a single cord with its internal twist and build the second step bundle out of group instances of the single cord, in can not be twisted to achieve the step two twist, and also not the step three twist.
You could try using this addon, amongst using some other methods (Texture mapping/ particle emitter for small fibres on each twisted strand of the rope)
Not sure what version it works with, so you may need to use a previous version of blender to use the add-on, export your base rope mesh and then finish editing in a more current build
