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I'm a graphic designer who's been using blender for fun and making mockups for my projects, and I'm looking to make a textbook model. Now I know there are other convincing ways to model a book, but while working I became curious if it would be possible to use curves to make each individual page, then convert them to mesh and extrude each page individually (this tutorial shows this process in the first few seconds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDOxTniM0Wg ).

Instead of individually placing and shaping 200+ curves I was wondering if there was a way to shape one curve at one extreme, and another at the other extreme, and have the software create steps in between?

The closest tool I can think of is the blend tool in illustrator, which does virtually exactly what I'm looking for, but in 2d.

Justin Tiger Reinsma
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  • May I ask you why do you need all pages real 3D? – vklidu Jul 17 '20 at 23:17
  • I don't need the pages to be separate, but I'm trying to create something as convincing as possible as it is a mockup for showcasing some client work. I suppose I could also just use bump or displacement maps if I really needed the 3d look, but they tend to look less realistic under close scrutiny in my limited experience. – Justin Tiger Reinsma Jul 17 '20 at 23:21

2 Answers2

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Sometimes is better to ask "How to create ...", because in your case there are a bunch of ways to get desired result, eg. to get a lot of pages you can try a Cloth Simulation.

Cloth Simulation

enter image description here

  • Add Plane, switch into Edit Mode move along X to side, add few Loops (Ctrl+R) along longer side
  • Add an Empty
  • Select Plane add Array Modifier > Relative Offset > 0, Object Offset > Empty and rotate the Empty in Y axis
  • Apply the modifier
  • In Edit Mode select the first and the last page as well as all central vertices of all pages and add them to a Vertex Group
  • Add Cloth Simulation, use the newly created vertex group for Pinning, enable Self Collision, adjust parameters as you like

vklidu
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At around 1:10 in the video, the person applies a mirror modifier. Instead of entering edit mode and extruding down to make the book, select the curve in object mode and add an Array Modifier. Change the Z offset to something very small, and increase the iterations (although 200 makes a very thick book, even at .01 offset).

ArrayBook

Hopefully this is close to what you're looking for.

Christopher Bennett
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