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I am trying to make a flowing twisting detail for a clothing set. If you look at photo #1 you will see that it is flushed against the characters arm. That is what I want. However , I do not want it to be in that shape. Photo #3 is how I want the detail to appear, flushed and twisting perfectly around the arm.

Photo #2 is simply the curve from photo #3, but with depth. Shrink wrap does not produce the desired effect.

The method used in photo #1 is simply selecting faces, duplicating and solidifying.

I have been trying to fix this for a very long time and nothing I do produces the desired effect. I obviously could just model and sculpt this, but being that I have hundreds of pieces that need this type of effect, I would like to complete this before the next decade.

Thanks for reading.

Photo #1

Photo #2

Photo #3

Richard Brock Jr.
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  • Model the base mesh of the cloth and use shrinkwrap. See http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/44758/emboss-text-onto-curved-surface as one way. – Mr Zak Aug 24 '16 at 09:11
  • I tried with the answer given by @MrZak, in the comments : no success (as going around the arm makes difficult to use a lattice). What you can try : make your curve as you did with shrinkwrap (and with no bevel). Then convert it to mesh and convert it back to curve (this will remove the twisting problems). Eventually convert this curve to bezier and set back the handles to auto (tools panel). Once done, add the bevel object. I don't give an answer because I am not sure all that correspond to your exact situation or need. But if you want more explanations tell here and I will write one. – lemon Aug 24 '16 at 13:47
  • @lemon I tried doing what you suggest, but it appears very messy, and therefore undesirable. I would link a few pictures of what I am speaking of, but I am not sure how to add pictures here. – Richard Brock Jr. Aug 24 '16 at 23:07
  • looking again at your first picture, I agree : this is not accurate enough. – lemon Aug 25 '16 at 05:39

1 Answers1

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Considering you have hundreds of pieces like this, I am not sure this approach is good enough, but this is the best I have found so far.

The principle is to use a small square with an array, make it follow the curve and shrinkwrap it :

enter image description here

That can be also done using a bevel object with the curve, but the array allows to handle easier the polycount.

Doing that, the main problem is to align the twist / tilt of the curve so that all is aligned along the arm (same problem with a bevel object).

So I had to tilt Ctrl+T each vertex of the curve to align the band with the arm :

enter image description here

Once done, apply the modifiers and you can refine the model (a bit), for instance adding curve and stretch it a bit :

enter image description here

lemon
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