Broomstick staws/twigs modeling need help

GabBaz

I trying to model a broomstick prop and I am now stock at how to do the twigs. I want the model to be kind of optimized but still have some real 3d twigs on the outside (or some well placed/baked planes maybe), so my idea was to have a solid mesh for the inside part with the twigs baked on it but some real ones  outside. The problem is, I'm trying to find a way to make it happen, I don't know how to model the twig without having to shape each strand individually to follow the overall shape of the back of the broom. I thought about array tool, or if it would be possible with some kind of hair/fur tool and playing with values, or loft... Any Ideas/suggestions? Also I'm trying to achieve really good level of visual fidelity for my props so I want some chaos and details in the twigs. The is also some proportions problems right now with the prop, put I can adjust that easily, I'm pulling my hair out about those twigs! Looking at how they do it on Hogwarts Legacy, I see the front part is baked and the back has some real twigs/ well baked planes? 
( https://youtu.be/1O6Qstncpnc?t=64 )

toxicsludge77

This is how I'd do it, not sure if there is a better way...

The top part just looks like a baked texture so that should be pretty straightforward.

I'd bake a dense straw/twig texture to the existing lower geo you already have, then duplicate those faces and offset it a little so you dont have z-fighting. Bake a less dense twig texture to that along with an opacity mask so you have small gaps between the less dense twigs, but you can also see denser twigs underneath.

Hope that makes sense.

GabBaz

Yes thanks, I think I'll go with that for my low poly, it's a good way. But my question was also for the high poly part of the twigs, how could I make all those straw in the shape of the back without modeling them and placing them one by one? I feel that it would be time consuming and I'm curious about any tool/generator or just trick that could make it faster.

 I know I could just make a couple of twig arrangement, some more/ less dense than other on 2d plane to make it, but I want to make the high poly with real twigs in the tail of the broom.

Thanks for the reply

birb

GabBaz said:

Yes thanks, I think I'll go with that for my low poly, it's a good way. But my question was also for the high poly part of the twigs, how could I make all those straw in the shape of the back without modeling them and placing them one by one? I feel that it would be time consuming and I'm curious about any tool/generator or just trick that could make it faster.

 I know I could just make a couple of twig arrangement, some more/ less dense than other on 2d plane to make it, but I want to make the high poly with real twigs in the tail of the broom.

Thanks for the reply

Particle hair in Blender or Maya XGen or whatever hair generator in your preferred 3D package. In your place I'd use a hair cards-inspired approach to the LP, but with a solid core under the layers of twigs. Since the beginning is so tightly packed and needs to have "closed" roots it'd be easier to make that part unique and with little to no layers of twigs cards, taking advantage of those conveniently placed metal bands to hide the beginning of the mixed cards / mesh part.

This is a good chance to play with hair and particle generators if you haven't already. They're fun and extremely useful for generating maps for more things than hair:

GabBaz

I think you are right, watching a video of someone using this kind of hair/fur generator, doing stuff I didn't know you could do with it. Looks like the best solution so far, I'll be experimenting with that.

Thank you.

GabBaz

I'm happy with the result, thanks suggesting it!