I want to make a scene with a lot of books, but want to model it in a smart way at least as far as the number of books are concerned. I have 2 ways in my mind to approach this, either an array or a very controlled particle system. They both have their ups and downs as far as random size, direction, tilability etc are concerned and I am in a dead end.
Would any of you people be kind enough to suggest which is the best way to start tackling this and how would they go about texturing. Given the fact that only the sides of the books are visible but with a need to give some “volume” to their existance. I need a way to keep my books stacked next to each other and also vary their size… (in short)
I think I would model at least 5-10 books of various thickness and height. Apply a different material to each one. Create a straight line mesh made up of evenly spaced vertices. Then you can use the particle system to deploy the books along the line at those vertices. Zero out field weights and Normal to keep the particles in place. Scale the line to move the books closer together.
Here is a setup with only two books modeled. I have added both books to the same group and I set the particle system to choose from that group randomly.
If you really want control of the book stack, make each book a group. Group can be duplicated at well to increase number. Place them anyway you want. You can make a group out of number of books to speed up the process as well:
make a book, UV map it, duplicate it and make a few different shapes and sizes from the duplicates using constrained scaling, then make a giant UV texture containing several different book covers, then go back and move the UV coords on an individual basis.
Thank you for your suggestions. Even though I was looking for a more intuitive way to do this I guess I will go with the old way. It’s just annoying that you cant have some sort of variant in the array modifier to randomize sizes, or do things like that
Thats a real mess of books! 