Zbrush or 3DS Max - Wool/String/Yarn Wrapping Decent Methods?

oXYnary

3DS Max: Attempted using Spline Helix lofts, noises, and conforms only really decently with a flat side like cylinder.
Zbrush:  IMM with Stroke curvature easily becomes a mess.

This is the best I could do thus far, which is passable since its not a high super high rez game *after baking to a LP of course), but still it looks like the transporter from the "The Fly:"  I still need to create just ball versions.

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I was at the point of just admitting defeat and getting TS model.  Until I realized it literally was just a scan and all the objects are combined

srsface

You could create a lowpoly proxy mesh with the correct shape, UV map it, use this script to flatten the mesh to its UVs, draw your spline mesh on top, skin wrap that to the flattened proxy, then morph the proxy mesh back to original shape. Might work.