Hello,
I know how to make typical “flat” hexagonal grill without bends but here is what I need to model:
I am stuck because I need to bend it to the inside and make it follow this particular profile. Should I use some kind of a texture instead of modeling?
Thank you for any help.
I am using Blender 3.0.
It might be easier to use a texture, I linked some like this in a post yesterday: How do I make the thousands of tiny holes in this industrial shell-tube heat exchanger? - #2 by josephhansen
As far as the modeling goes, you can do that with just four circles:
And just use Bridge, from the Loop Tools, to connect them
I’ve been thinking about turning these quads into hexagons and applying wireframe modifier but I dont know if thats even possible.
It is possible, just difficult 
Give me one second and I’ll show you one way
Actually, no, it’s not possible. At least- it’s not possible to convert those quads into hexagons, not without some nasty math you’d have to do with scripting. While you could make a hexagonal grid mesh and deform it to fit, this is also a very bad idea. Getting holes small enough to fit your example image and deforming to that mesh might be possible, but my computer can’t handle it, and I have a pretty beefy computer. Use a PBR image texture, the amount of geometry needed for something like that + the deform is not worth the resource drain on your computer
Thank you anyway, at least I know what to go for!
Regarding the texturing, can I use something like this:
And “tell” Blender that the black = empty space and white = geometry?
Thank you!
Helped me a lot.
Blender community. 
Sweet, I’m glad to hear it The one downside to that method is you don’t have thickness, but you can kind of fake it with an array modifier:
See attached.
Basically use two array modifiers for the hex grid, make sure merge is on.
Add a weld modifier just in case, add cloth physics.
Add a separate sphere in object mode and use proportional editing to make the shape, give it a subdivision modifier and in the physics tab add collision.
Move the hex grid just on top of the sphere and play animation, pause the animation once you are happy with the shape. Add a cube and make it envelop the area you want to cut off, add a boolean modifier to the hex grid with the cube as the target.
You can also add solidify if you want.
This is what everything looks like un-applied.
colour me impressed.
I tried that initially, the cloth simulation did not like the complexity of the mesh. It might be because I solidified it, but my computer simply could not handle it. Kudos to you for getting that to work!
I decided to go with your solution but I have one question - is there a way to get rid off the “blackness” when the view angle makes the grid overlapping itself?
That’s weird, check if Backface Culling is on in the material settings, toggling that checkbox should help
I’ve checked the backface culling and there is no difference if its on / off.
I noticed that the issue is more visible if I make additional layers “fixed count” is set to 11 in the array modifier:
Are you setting the material transparency to Alpha Blend, Alpha Hashed, or Alpha Clipped? Try all three and see if one of them gives a better result
Switching to alpha hashed helped with Eevee engine but the problem persists with Cycles. 
Got it!
I had to increase samples for transparency.
Thanks again!
