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I am looking on how to produce braided tubing in blender. Below is what I'm trying to replicate. Any help would be much appreciatedenter image description here

Martynas Žiemys
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Chris
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3 Answers3

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version – Modifiers

Add a mesh Circle 12 points, Delete > Only Face&Edges.
Modifiers in this order:

  • Screw (spiral)
  • Screw (strip wide)
  • Mirror (strip crossing)
  • Solidify (thickness)

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Two other Cylinders for inner and outer tube with correspond material.

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To add a bit of randomness to braid I added Geometry Nodes modifier after the first Screw to random a bit wire crossing ... Random Value for Offset socket of Set Position node.

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To make it more realistic you can duplicate wires before Mirror modifier Mirror it and Solidify in negative direction. Or for more precise modelling -Apply the first Screw modifier and manually select every second point and Scale on X,Y a bit ... so you get up&down crossing.

version – Geometry Nodes

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Spiral stroke segment generates already first node, all the others are to set strip, correct Tilt and Extrude, shade Smooth limited by Split Edge node (factor Edge Angle) ... enter image description here

... segment arrayed and mirrored (by Scale -1). enter image description here

enter image description here

Edit: Knitching All the techniques here use braid in one direction above a crossing direction, but in reality it is up&down knitching ... so here is some way ...

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Node-tree is longer, so instead of sharing screen check the file ...

vklidu
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Generate stripes using e.g. wave textures (or just math: ping-pong on coordinates). You might need to rotate your UV map inside the shader if it's generated procedurally (I'm using a bevel on a curve here). Then just compose one over the other - I'm not using a Mix node because the color is same for both layers, also I'm not making the stripes intertwined, which would require slightly more logic. Modifying normals for more 3D effect:

Markus von Broady
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The other provided answers are great.

enter image description here

Here's one more way:

1.Add subdivisions so that you have a lot of squares

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  1. In face edit mode, select all, right-click and 'poke faces'

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  1. Select one vertical edge, Shift+G, length, then Ctrl+X to dissolve the selection

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  1. Ctrl+Alt+click an edge to select an edge ring, press F3 and type 'loop' and select 'select loops: edge loops'

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  1. Press 'P' to separate. Hide the other object for clarity. Select the new object and right-click and select 'convert to curve' (note, NOT the other curveS option)

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  1. Make a plane object, in face edit mode, select all, press X: remove ONLY faces, convert that to curve in object mode

  2. make that as the Bevel Object of the spiral curve object

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  1. Make the Twist method tangent:

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  1. Check 'Fill Caps'

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  1. Add some subdivisions for the 'Plane' Bevel object. Make the spiral object smooth by right-clicking and select 'Shade Smooth'.

Ask in comments if some thing's are hard to do, I can elaborate by editing this answer.

enter image description here

Manu Järvinen
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    I went by this way too :) Than I changed my mind ... BTW to create such curve you can use addon Extra Curves (packed with blender) > Spirals ... so you can skip first five steps. – vklidu Dec 29 '22 at 21:52
  • @vklidu I'm glad you changed your mind :) Your new answer is very clever! Creating the answer was more effort than I thought, also - could've been a shame to have to duplicate answers – Manu Järvinen Dec 29 '22 at 21:55
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    Yeap :) I know that feeling ... it happened to me several times, after a few hours of creating answer to notice its already answered is frustrating ... I already tried to propose some "reservation" system (or some notification someone is working on answer) would be helpful. Luckily this wasn't the case :) Very nice result. – vklidu Dec 29 '22 at 22:05
  • i am personally totally against any reservation, but...an information "somebody is writing an answer" might be helpful if you don't want to waste your time... ;) But i saw indeed somebody writing things like "but i wrote something in the comments and you answered it..." as if they could reserve it...i could only laugh! :D – Chris Dec 30 '22 at 06:05
  • @Chris IMO submitting a work-in-progress versions of a long answer would be totally okay if in the end it says "Answer writing in progress. Update soon to see the edits." or something. I think I might just do that for the next long answer of mine. – Manu Järvinen Dec 30 '22 at 08:58