I was very interested when I looked at new features in 2.44 and found there the Unfold mesh script. I decided for a quick test, how easily it’s possible to make paper models from meshes.
Of course that the first model must be a Suzanne. I made the maximal low-poly from her without destroying the basic shape (500 vertices to 106, with some flat areas). Then, I divided the object into five parts for better unfolding. I baked a simple Voronoi Crackle in the UVs and then exported both SVG and the baked bitmap. I divided that image into two parts and printed on two pages.
I cut the parts with a mat-knife and kept some areas around to put glue on. Then it was quite simple, because the model was really low-poly and on a big piece of paper. This is a photo:
This is a rendered image:
But I encountered a surprise - the script doesn’t care about normals! I had some parts printed from the inner side. I simply ignored that, but the texture doesn’t fit on some areas:
But I like it very much. I will make some more complex model, probably a robot.
You mean something like “Making monkey head in five steps”?
I will make a better model first, with some more interesting texture, and then I will think about it.
And I think that the script could have some features making paper modelling easier (it is designed probably only for UV mapping).
It would be cool to have every model lying in front of you on the table
Haha this is fun! because two months ago i wanted to create a soft toy from one of my models, but i didn’t know how to create a pattern for sewing… so i unwrapped the creature and printed it. this was very useful
but i didn’t have the idea to print a texture on it, this is quite cool!
There is a program called Pepakura Designer (Shareware, costs $38 to buy a licence) that can do this, it adds tabs to the output to make things like this MUCH easier! I made a Blender Logo using it! its great fun!
I wish I was better with my hands :-p I need a mouse to do most things…
