Does anyone have any ideas or had success making fur for a 3D printable model? Any techniques to cover the geometry with hair so that the 3D print has what looks like hair? Thanks, Steve
Anyone...? Was thinking something like one of these: http://anwo.com/store/grizzly_bear_toy_miniature.htm or http://www.tapirback.com/tapirgal/gifts/friends/bears/polar- bear-plastic-f1113.htm
I think bump maps don't change the geometry of your object right? They give the appearance of 3D on a 2D surface by changing the normals so the shading makes the object look 3D...? Let me know if I am wrong. But in line with your comment I was thinking of using displacement mapping which changes the 3D geometry of your object based on an image or texture. Maybe this is what you meant? I have never used displacement mapping before but was reading about it last night. I guess the idea is to unwrap my object and then take the resulting unmapping and color over it in an image editor something like fur streaks in black and white, then use a displacement modifier in blender...I'll play with it later. Finally, never heard of sculptris...is it free? Do you use it? Easy to use? Thanks! Steve
Yes displacement map was what I meant. Sculptris is free, you have to play around with it to get the hang of it. Blender also has some sculpting tools. V
Thanks for the info. I'll try Sculptris out. Do you find Sculptris is better than Blender's sculpting tools? I have used Blender's a bit... I have heard with ZBrush the number of polys really goes up, I imagine it's similar with Sculptris, so I'll have to be careful not to exceed the polys allowed by shapeways. Thanks for the ideas...I'll post my results if they are decent .
Scupltris has some easy going poly reduction tools built-in. In mesh view you can see the polys (triangles really) disappearing on the fly so you can pick & choose what parts of the model that won't suffer detail loss with poly reduction.
Thanks stop4stuff, I'll bear that in mind when trying out Sculptris! Should get some time to work on the sculpting once I finish some more geometry...
Well I tried a number of things, but I didn't have much success with any of them. I couldn't get a good result with the displacement map, but that may be because I gave up too soon. I bet someone with some more practice and skill could have used it to good effect. Sculptris is really great and I am definitely adding it to my suite of tools! Thanks for the recommendation. However although some of the work I did in sculptris was pretty nice looking, it was taking too long to sculpt hairs all over the body. I saw someone in z-brush make a 'stamp' of fur and use that to cover the body, but alas I don't think sculptris has a tool like that. So I ended up doing it the 'easy' but tedious way with some duplicating shortcuts. But in essence I placed elongated cylinders (hairs) all over my body. Here's the result. The models are now on their way...I'll post pics when he arrives and/or once he's painted.
In my opinion you should try with ZBrush, the results will certainly be satisfied http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?165601
The problem with ZBrush for me is that 3d modeling is a hobby I do every so often and I can't currently justify spending that kind of money on an aperiodic hobby. Would love to have it though.