I cannot figure out how to get this modeled around an object. I need help with a starting pint, similar to “knurling” but different in the way there are contours to the pattern. Thank you for any insight you can provide.
Modeling this surface characteristic-pic included
kromekat
#2
Hey there,
I would suggest looking at creating it with Substance Designer as a displacement/normal map rather than actual geometry, since I would think it would be a lot easier to control the shape and depth as a repeating texture tile, as well as the falloff of the pattern, should you require it to emulate this example exactly.
Otherwise, you are looking at creating a grid of diamond shaped polys, extruded inwards a little to get the spacing required. These would also require horizontal and vertical cuts through their middles, and then some edge bevelling to get the rounded mid section. Thereafter it’s going to be a lot of subtle pushing of points to get the depth shading. Whether you can achieve this simply by adjusting the phong shading limits alongside the point tweaks, or whether this ultimately needs to have a subdivision surface generator and some selected edge sharpening is hard to say.
I still think the texture method would be the cleanest and most precise!
Good luck!
Adam 