Process highpoly to look like rough CNC and 3D print

sltrOlsson

I believe I've seen an article floating around where someone explains how to get the look of CNC milling and/or 3D-print lines on your highpoly. The article basically roughly explains how to import you model in to a pre-process software and export the preview as a 3D model. The process looked easy enough, I'd love to have a look at it again so that I can skip the trial and error of it all  

Have someone tried to do this or seen the article?

SnowInChina

haven't seen the article in question, but couldn't you do a planar uv unwrap from the front and tile a normalmap over the model which has the look youre looking for ?

sltrOlsson

For the 3D-printed look that's definitely a great alternative that I've thought about too.
But the CNC cuts are different. I'm also thinking that I might be able to get the path out as a SVG vector, and trough Houdini create a flowmap to bend normals for that anisotropic behaviour. 

sltrOlsson

Alright the highpoly part for CNC was fairly easy. I tried Fusion 360, imported and OBJ, converted it to a Bbody, followed this instructebles tutorial on a basic milling setup, then you run a simulation and when that's done (or at any point of the simulation) you can right click-stock-save stock and you you'll get a .stl file.

What's left for that process is just learning CNC basically Who would've thought that was hard. My issue is the tool head keeps hitting the top of my model and so that part goes flat.

As for getting the tool path, the path the tool moves over the mesh, there seems to be a way to get .dxf file out, but that's only a 2D vector path. My initial thought was to use that as a guide in Houdini to create a flow map with.

Since I'm really looking to get a highpoly and the direction/path the tool have taken, I'm thinking going with houdini all the way is way easier. 

sltrOlsson

Posting this for future reference, in the simulation tab you can turn off the tool or tell it to ignore parts of it. This is what it looks like with just the "shaft" active. 

RacePeaceDay

When I tried to dynamesh or zremesh it crashes. So I guess need to manually retopo it and then project details or bake heightmap.