Hi! This is my first post on the forums, so if this is in the wrong section please feel free to move it to the right place.
I’m a beginner in Blender, coming over from years in 3DS Max. I’ve got the hang of a lot of the modeling techniques in Blender so far and can now model pretty much anything I could do in max. But this problem has my brain going sideways and around itself. I’ve been trying for 2 days now and still can’t get anything close. Maybe I’m just not smart enough.
As the title says, I’m trying to model a 12-strand double-weave rope. Sort of a tubular braid. And I need to do this accurately.
I’ve been trying to get a rope model going in several ways, using different kinds of curves, from bezier, through completely handcrafted and spiral variants. I’ve also been looking at tutorials for making braids, but they end up with single-weave stuff which is neat too but for my purpose doesn’t work afaik. I just haven’t been able to figure out how to set up the curve to work for this. So I would love some help from others to solve this problem.
Also, there are some requirements that the model needs to fulfill.
Strands need to be able to be array controlled, at least it is preferred. This way I can make changes to the rope strands quickly, as I will need to make different dimensions later on.
Needs to be in 2 grouped “pieces”, for example I need to make the rope follow a line and be able to make openings in the “middle”. So 6 and 6 strains need to be controlled together. This is because I need to be able to accurately model splices for this type of rope. As long as I can get the complete rope modeled it shouldn’t be an issue to separate the correct strands though.
To illustrate example what I need, here are a couple of images:
If it’s how I’m thinking… Perhaps model a relatively flat weave with a hounds-tooth pattern, then use the simple deform modifier’s bend setting to wrap it back 360° on itself. Then that can be arrayed to make the rest along a curve. I might have to give that a try if how I described it doesn’t make sense.
Yes I know, I’d expect he’d remodel it off of my example with curves. Or he could still use Skin and array however he would have to separate it into 4 objects then. edit: could even get away with separating out into just 2.
Here’s my go at it. Didn’t quite work exactly the way I was thinking. (Simple deform bend didn’t want to work for this case, so I used a curve deformer.) However I was correct about hounds-tooth being the planar weave that’s wrapped back on itself to make the tube. I still have some trouble mentally wrangling offsets needed for arrays and curves though, so I’m thinking this needs a few more adjustments.
–Edit–
Apparently what I mean by “houndstooth” is a 2:2 twill pattern. The name has more to do with the way of alternating the colors used. But I was thinking of the weave associated with that pattern. :eyebrowlift:
would it be possible to give a brief description how it was done
so that others people can have a better idea how to do it !
then we can reference back to this thread as a short tut
Thanks for all the replies guys, will have to look it over more closely later. Priorities got shifted at work. However I did figure out a way to get a 14 strand one looking like I want it. I’ll share my results at a later when I have time for it. It was indeed tricky to get anywhere near the desired result.
Not quite doing the whole thing, since I’d think most people trying this would know how the modifier stacks work. But I made a video on making the weave part. If you get that right, then it’s easy enough to cut out a section that tiles and go from there.
I didn’t quite have the flow as I did when the 2AM inspiration hit on trying this. So not quite as successful with the alignment as I needed to be. (Once you have it right, the vertices will merge via the array modifier.) But as seen in the .blend file, it is possible. The other thing I was trying to explain is that it needed the edge density increased so it’ll deform better for the modifiers. (Selecting edges of similar length and subdividing those as needed. Don’t overdo it though.) However I jumped the gun on cutting it into a section, so selecting by edge length didn’t work as well as it could have. And if you get that down it’s just a matter of arraying, then using the curve modifier to make a tube section, then another array and curve modifier. Also you may have to go into curve properties settings to get it to conform to the entire curve with stretching and/or bounds.
And even though the video material is ad-hoc in execution, the gist of it should be useful. This means you can change the weave pattern and strand counts to whatever you can think is reasonable.
