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Modeling folds in leather couch cushions

polycounter lvl 12
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TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
I've tried searching but didn't come up with anything so forgive me if this has been covered before.

I'm modeling a sofa in 3ds Max2009 and am planning to model in the folds and such in a high poly model to bake down to a low. Here's a ref image:

leathersofaqp2.jpg


I know I've seen tutorials somewhere about the best way to go about modeling the folds but google isn't being very helpful in my search. I'd rather keep it all in max at the moment instead of going into Zbrush, so if anyone has any advice, examples, etc, I'd appreciate it.

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  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    why bother keeping it all in max? it's probably going to be a lot faster and easier to do it in zbrush, and will probably look better :)
  • Mark Dygert
    yea, don't drive yourself nuts.
  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    Mainly because Zbrush isn't liking my work computer :) I might have to either deal with the sluggishness or just take it home, but I could've sworn I saw a rather simple max tutorial using subdivision modeling that provided some pretty nice results.
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    That hurt my brain just thinking about a way to do it without zbrush. I guess you could create separate meshes for the cushions and while in the lower polygon levels create the folds, chamfer the edges on their outline and then apply a smooth on the cushions, but this would take like 10x the time it would take you to do it with zbrush.

    And having tried some years ago to give a high poly model extra detail with soft select, I can tell you right now this won't work either :P
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Well no, I mean it's perfectly possible to do it in Max, and it'll probably look good ... but it'll take longer. And if you don't think you know how to do it now without a tutorial, then I don't think you are confident enough with sub-d modelling in general anyway?
  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    Wow, I didn't know that by asking if anyone had any ideas on a workflow with max that it'd be implied that I'm not confident enough with sub-d skills.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude or insult your skills. I would just have expected if you know how to model in sub-d then you shouldn't have to ask? Does that make sense? Modelling is modelling, doesn't matter what the subject is. If you can model something else in sub-d, why not a cushion?

    Or are you just looking for a sort of "best way" to do it based on someone else's idea of modelling folds? You've got a good reference photo there, you know how to model in sub-d, why not just get working on it? You'd probably have a halfway decent result in the time that it'll take for someone (or yourself) to dig up any relevant tutorial. Seriously, try it! :)
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    Wel, I went as far as to try out my "guess" but like I guessed, it was a shitty guess.

    a4murq.jpg
  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    MoP wrote: »
    Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude or insult your skills. I would just have expected if you know how to model in sub-d then you shouldn't have to ask? Does that make sense? Modelling is modelling, doesn't matter what the subject is. If you can model something else in sub-d, why not a cushion?

    Or are you just looking for a sort of "best way" to do it based on someone else's idea of modelling folds?

    Its cool dude. Yeah, your last sentence is my reason for asking.
  • t4paN
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    t4paN polycounter lvl 10
    MoP wrote: »
    Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude or insult your skills. I would just have expected if you know how to model in sub-d then you shouldn't have to ask? Does that make sense? Modelling is modelling, doesn't matter what the subject is. If you can model something else in sub-d, why not a cushion?

    Or are you just looking for a sort of "best way" to do it based on someone else's idea of modelling folds? You've got a good reference photo there, you know how to model in sub-d, why not just get working on it? You'd probably have a halfway decent result in the time that it'll take for someone (or yourself) to dig up any relevant tutorial. Seriously, try it! :)

    Well, sub-d modelling something that has an abstract/kind-of-organic shape (such as a cushion) isn't exactly standard practice, I think. I mean the guy can maybe create mean tanks and spaceships, but a cushion is quite different imo.

    /edit lol, MadArtist's portfolio is full of tanks and stuff like that, I saw it right after posting this reply XD
  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    Yeah, I was just avoiding doing it in Zbrush as it gets rather slow on my comp but that is probably my best option.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    ok, just an example, to see how long it would take, i did this cushion in 10-15 minutes. it's certainly not amazing, but it'd be a fine base for a normal-map bake (add some subtle leather overlay in PS, texture it, it's a great cushion as part of your everyday couch!)

    cushion_example.jpg

    I am putting together a step-by-step image now to show how it was done, it's really not that hard and i'm sure you could do a better cushion if you spent a bit longer than i did :)
  • Harry
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    Harry polycounter lvl 13
    yeah, zbrush or muddy would be the ideal approach. You could subd and use cut heaps i guess

    btw mop i reckon it'd look sicker with leather texture in the spec and diffuse than the normal ;D oh, unless it was comparitively high res i guess. I'm thinking game kind of res. just imo.
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
    Workflow for this quickie thing, maybe it will give you some ideas.
    The wireframe view is horrible, but if it's for a normal-map generation highpoly, or even for a static cinematic rendered asset then it shouldn't matter - it's not going to animate or deform, all that matters is the end result. Basically I just looked at the reference pic and make quick cuts with the Cut tool to get the initial shapes of the folds, then just used Connect to hook up floating verts/edges and add a bit more detail.

    cushion_workflow.jpg

    Apologies for the big image, hopefully the image-resizing forum code works its magic! :)
  • MoP
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    MoP polycounter lvl 18
  • Rick Stirling
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    Rick Stirling polycounter lvl 18
    Yup, that works. Good job Mop!

    As people have said, and Mop has proved, it can be done, but since sculpting it is easier you need to weigh up the various methods. I reckon that if you are proficient in Zbrush/mudbox you could do the entire unique sofa in the same time it took to model the few cushions.

    Chuck in a few alpha maps created from sofa textures and you'll be laughing.
  • Mark Dygert
    hahaha MoP was bitten by the modeling bug, hahaha nice work.
  • EarthQuake
    Strangefate has some good examples here for general cloth topology as well that might be helpful to someone.

    http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=50404
  • dur23
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    dur23 polycounter lvl 19
  • PolyHertz
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    PolyHertz polycount lvl 666
    MoP wrote: »
    OH GOD

    Oh SHI-- is that some divide by zero I see?


    Actually that looks sort of fun, I might have to make a couch now :p
  • Marine
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    Marine polycounter lvl 18
    wtf, you got rid of the smiley face, mop :(
  • TheMadArtist
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    TheMadArtist polycounter lvl 12
    Haha, that's a really nice couch Mop. Thanks for the step by step workflow, that's a definite help :)
  • Minos
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    Minos polycounter lvl 16
    Thanks for the tips MOP :D
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