I am trying to model the shrinking film effect that you normally find in packs of drinks cans. I am a 3dsmax user and tried many techniques all of which with tremendously disappointing results. The cans I modeled are, unfortunately very high res and, as such, all wrapping meshes that I have been using need to be of very high density.
I followed someone's posts advising to use MD and I decided to give it a try. I am most impressed with the fluidity of the program and its amazing results but, as a newbie, I came across quite a few problems being the most important the UV mapping. After trying a couple of options, best results seemed to be achieved by two rectangles laced directly above and below the pack of cans and have them stitched on the sies only
I could get pretty mush the result I was looking for
After a while I realized That in MD I needed to get the particle density of the wrapping esh to a very high value to avoid t gon through the avatar. I increased the value and after a much slowed down process, the results were very impressive.
However, when sending it back o 3dsmax, UV mapping is a nightmare because the mesh is really super dense and I always end up wt two sets of UV that I cant stitch seamlessly.
So I went back to MD and tried to do it with one single mesh as in the real world. One single rectangle with the shorter sides stitched. I was kinda expecting that the mesh would fall onto the pack by the effect of gravity and then the shorter sides would find their way to stitch together. However, the result was a much different one
Can anyone point me out o a tutorial that best shows such procedure?
Many Thanks!
To wrap the film around the 6 pack you can load it as an avatar (object) and assign a single BV (Bounding volume - green) to roughly enclose your 6 pack and then one single AR (Arrangement point - Blue dot) this will wrap the single cloth pattern around the model in a single click. Then simulate down as you did before and that will work.
To access the bounding volumes > select the 6 pack can as an avatar > then open up the avatar editor > and add in one new BV to that model. The rest of the workflow is in the video below. In MD any object that is assigned to be an avatar can have manually applied BV's and AR points. This greatly speeds the simulation process as it places the patterns closer to the model and in a general position. So it's a good habit to get into for arranging your projects where patterns need to wrap around objects.
https://youtu.be/mx7lKG0JqKE
Dear Angel
I can't thank you enough for your help. Did as you advised and it worked straight away!! I actually saw your reply on my phone so I didn't see the image you attached. I did it slightly differently with a cuboid shape and it worked beautifully. One last question if I may, On my simulation, I wonder which parameter must I adjust for the side flaps to stretch inwards as real plastic does if it makes sense.
Thank you ever so much for taking the time and pointing me out n the right direction!
My pleasure Miguel, there are a few ways to shorten the ends so they wrap better:
1 > you can apply an 'elastic' factor to the long edges of the pattern and open ends, the default is 80% but you can play with that factor to shrink the ends down. You can also apply warp/weft shrink to the pattern piece itself to shrink the entire pattern piece uni-formally in the x,y direction, and if you place the grain-line on the pattern at 45 degrees the material will stretch with the bias on a diagonal, all subtle tweak within your control.
On the pattern open end edges you can see I have used 'tape' to strengthen these so they don't pucker or ripple, that adds in a second more rigid material to these local areas.
2 > In addition you have the 'Shrink' + 'Expand' steam tool which is a kind of relax brush in the 3D and 2D window that allows you to add in localised shrinkage to the cloth, which is manual control that you kind of paint in. That is the type of factor you use for steaming cloth to get some nice pulling or more compound shapes (like on steaming a bowler hat - or over the crown of shoulders on jackets). So steam is pretty handy for this.
3 > Finally you could also take the item into the sculpt workspace and manually brush in or project stretch to the cloth in areas to suit your final stressed look on the plastic.
Use the CPU > Fitting Accurate (Beauty Pass simulation) for your final quality sim when tweaking the detail.
4 > you can also adjust the fabric physical simulation to get a more stretchy fabric material by tweaking the 8 factors that make a fabric stretchy like ponte knit or behave more like a non stretch woven nylon or linen.
Dear Angel,
Thank you ever so much. This gives me TREMENDOUS insight of loads of things in MD. Thank you very very much
At the end of the day, what did it for me was the steam tool. I mean it felt almost 'real'!!!
Let's explore other stuff now! ;-)
Once again, thank you very much for your most amazing and kind help!
(just realized I have the wrong labels on the cans... d'ohhhhh)
Well done, a good result, .... yes plastic is a bit of playing about as it's basically a 'fabric only' physical preset engine but completely possible to do some plastics in a still image.
This could be where MD starts to differentiate itself a bit from CLO3D on the 'preset engine' where they maybe add in a second collision system (MD11 ?) so artists can get a few more product orientated materials other than just fabric, stands to reasons they could likely push the envelope for product designers (which is where I have my background) with MD10 in the interior related materials.
Please sign in to leave a comment.