I wanted to try and recreate a knit wool mesh and material for cycles. This is how I came up with this one, which besides one glaring error is pretty solid I think.
Model one stitch with a mirror modifier. Unwrap it, active quads for perfect unwrap. Use normal map for fine helical shading.
Array on x, 1, merge
Array on z ~1.3
Curve modifier on bezier circle
Apply everything
Shape key, use proportional edit radius huge, random. I couldn’t get a good displacement working, so this was my workaround.
Proportional edit to shape it, I could have used a lattice but didn’t.
Material with transparentcy on fresnal, and hair intercept on hair system.
I messed up though, I should have applied the arrays and then used the curve. You can see little breaks where the mesh is not closed, at the very bottom center if many stitches. There’s nothing to be done now, it’s a redo. Fortunately it’s pretty simple.
Thanks, I think I’ll try and remake it going even lower poly and with a perfect closed mesh. I’ll probably post a blend if anyone wants a template for this kind of model/material.
I remade the base stitch using 4 vert loops (squares) This entire stitchwork is only 144 tris. Everything else is pure modifier.
Stack:
Array, x, merge
Array, z
Subsurf 1
Curve, bezier circle (delete this to make it flat)
Displace
Hair system
This version is non destructive, and can be modified in any way. If anyone wants to have a look and comment or improve it, post it back to the thread. Or feel free to use it any way, no credit need be given, CC 0.
