High Poly Welded Seams

mystichobo

How do you do them?
Like this: http://www.pinnaclefabrication.co.uk/images/welded-seam-large.jpg

I would guess you get a pattern of some sort that runs along a spline, but everything I have tried ends up looking really bad. I have seen a couple of models with that style weld in the P&P forum, so I thought I would ask

Malus

I just use the clay brush in Zbrush and make short semi-erratic movements back and forward while gradually moving along the line.

Mark Dygert

To model it in high poly, you can create a spline (normally converted from a edge selection), convert the spline to cylindrical geometry, sub-divide it and add noise.

Or I draw it into the normal map with a weld brush I make in photoshop.

Bump up the spacing, randomize the size a bit and set the forground/background jitter to something like 15-25%

Ark

The awesome Marek Denko has a tutorial over a Duber.cz for doing this, similar to what Vig is saying.

He basically creates a spline from the object, turns the spline renderable, then adds a noise and turbosmooth modifiers.