Exut posted a really nice katana handle recently and I asked him for some advice on how he made it. I'm pretty sure he wont mind me posting it here:
Ya that was a really tough part, and I wanted it to look nice. It is just geometry with a bump map. I should probably bring it into zbrush to sculpt some variations into it for the final. I found a video on youtube that actually showed a guy wrapping it, which helped a lot, as well as tonnes of reference photos, and I have a katana, which helped also :P. I used a plane and modelled it around the handle. I modeled one repeating section, then cloned it and adjusted it to fit the handle and repeated until I modeled the knots at the end. Then I used a shell modifier, and used a spline to define a bulge around the side. The shell modifier lets you do this so it's not just a 90 degree harsh edge. I UVW unwrapped it first though and layed the UVWs out in a huge straight line, going way outside the mapping area. Amazingly, since the geometry was (pretty) uniform, there was a UVW option in the shell modifier that perfectly added the UVW mapping of the shell part along the edge of the UVWs. It was great! Then I took a photo of my katanas wrap, edited it a bit and made it tile, applied it as a bump map, and I also used a blend with a smoke map in the diffuse channel to get some of the colour variation to cover up the fact that the bump map was tiling like, 500 times. I also put a modified version of the bump in the specular (or reflect for vray) channel blended with a noise map for some more variation. Here is a couple of wireframes: http://i.imgur.com/Pkab64U.png http://i.imgur.com/1NCYzJ7.jpg
just a couple of things to note: When you do the shell it has to be inner. If you use an outer shell, the geometry will get messed up around the twists. When you do the twists, make sure they alternate like in the first wireframe. In the second one, on the other side, they do not. I made the whole thing like the second wire, with non-alternating twists, and I still need to go and fix that side.
I hope this helps, and good luck!
Not sure what type of cloth are you talking about, but JurassicPerk also had a cool trick on creating the cloth-wrapped around the handle.
Quoted from his post on the hard surface challenge;
Here we go:
1. As MrOneTwo wildly guessed :poly122:, this was rendered inside 3dmax with vray
2. Yep, the etching was done with a 2D mask used as displacement
3. Nope, the leather has just a normal map applied on it
4. The leather grip was done with 3dsmax cloth, simulating a plane rolling onto the grip (I know, I'm a lazy bastard):
Ehi guys, glad you liked my idea for the sword grip.
At the moment I don't have time to make a proper tutorial, but I will share the .max scene with you, so that you can "study" it.
Basically, I've made a plane, selected the extreme loop of vertices (those that are closer to the grip) and I've forced them to follow the grip (check: sim node in the cloth guide to understand how to do this). Then I've made a rotating animation for the grip and I let the gravity do the rest of the work.
It's funny, because I'm the MrOneTwo - epic fail on my behalf XD
Anyway, back on topic - I use Blender and was able to set up a similar system with the handle rotating and moving. I was even able to replicate the vertices following the rotation of the grip. However what I do not understand is how the cloth stays aloft up until the point it's wrapped around the handle.
Jurassic mentions that he's simply letting gravity do the work, however in my simulation the cloth just instantly drapes down and coils around itself, not useful.
Also, is the cloth 2D or 3D, does it have any thickness to it, is it sub-surfed (Subdivided)..?
Replies
Quoted from his post on the hard surface challenge;
Anyway, back on topic - I use Blender and was able to set up a similar system with the handle rotating and moving. I was even able to replicate the vertices following the rotation of the grip. However what I do not understand is how the cloth stays aloft up until the point it's wrapped around the handle.
Jurassic mentions that he's simply letting gravity do the work, however in my simulation the cloth just instantly drapes down and coils around itself, not useful.
Also, is the cloth 2D or 3D, does it have any thickness to it, is it sub-surfed (Subdivided)..?
Will a look at modifier list answer your question?
I quess you need to increase friction.