I’ve been using blender for a few years, but have never come across this feature, and I thought I’d finally ask the community to see if it exists. I am a graphic designer of printed collateral and packaging, and use Blender to mockup designs for client presentations; I give flat UVs a little real world bend and turn. When it comes to modeling most of what I do is curve/deform real-world size flat meshes, and I’m looking for a way to do that without loosing the original aspect ratio I created my mesh at. In other words if create a plane/mesh to be the same size as an A4 sheet of paper, I need it to stay that A4 size even as I deform it.
In sculpt mode there is a very cool brush called the Elastic Deform, that somewhat preserves volume in a loose painterly way. I also know about about cloth simulations when animating. But it seems like both of these tools are geared towards animating between two states. I’m looking for a way to 100% maintain or preserve volume of a mesh while modeling, in a way that is more controlled than what proportional editing can do. Any thoughts?
That’s an interesting add-on. Thanks for sharing. What I’m really looking for is a way to quickly give a flat surface mesh a wave or a slight twist while maintaining the original surface volume. Proportional Editing get’s close but it still adds more surface to the mesh than what you originally started with.
If Blender can do cloth simulations without stretching a mesh, (like this waving flag ) then it seems like we should be able to apply that same physics simulation, but while in the modeling phase.
Oh, I acknowledge it’s totally niche. But it’s not limited to folding paper. Deforming a fixed size flat panel while maintaining its surface area would have applications for anyone doing product or architectural visualization work. Think sheetmetal, plastics, drywall, plywood etc. I do fabrication as well, I’d use this feature for mocking up sculpture, and wooden sub-components.
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