Hi everybody, I am faced with a problem that I do not know how to approach, I am not even sure that this can be done in Amapi 7.04 (or Carrara 3?). See the attached sketch of a sort of a "tunnel" shape. Here's my problem: I want to model the surface facing downwards into a quilted surface, i.e. like the geometry you all know from dune-blanquets or winter-anoraks. The pattern should be in squares, spread out diagonally over the entire surface, but maintaining the straight profile lines (obviously the squares will be cut at the edges of the surface). Can this be done? Is there a tutorial somewhere adressing this sort of problem? Thank you.

Just a thought, in C3 there is 3 different tesselation modes with one closely resembling diagonal squares . Regards Mike

I just did a quick model . Is this what you want. I inserted a grid in Carrara's VM ,used the tesselate tool to make the diagonal squares inside the squares of the original grid, then deleted the interior vertices inside each of the diagonal squares . You could then select every other sqaure and save as a "shader domain", then texture. Hope this helps Regards Mike

Thanks for the idea but in my case it won't work since I need every single square to be a convex 3D shape with a dome-sort of geometry. In fact, the difficulty is that the single square itself is following in its area the overall geometry of the tunnel. (I hope you understand, my English isn't that great)

I am not sure I understand , but could you not select all of the polygons of the image I attached and dynamically extrude with the "link polygons" unchecked. Do this a couple of times to get the convex shape . Attached is a quick version , you would have to clean up the mesh a bit. Regards Mike

Or you could use Anything grooves if you have it, likely would give you a cleaner mesh then the VM with dynamic extrude way. Brian

Alternatively you could use the crease/smooth edges function... So many ways to make a quilt! ;-) Mark

Attached Link: http://www.shaders3d.com

Hi Folks Well you can go the fast way and use a shader. this is from the fabric collection at www.shaders3d.com

Thank you guys for your ideas! Mark, I am interested how you achieved the effect with the crease/smooth edges function. It comes closest to what I wanted to a create. Could you get back to explain it a bit more thoroughly, p l e a s e ? Thanks, Johannes

Insert a Vertex Object into your document. In the Vertex Modeller, insert a grid (as shown in grey in pic 1). Using the link tool, link some of the vertices with diagonal lines so that each diamond encloses a grey vertex (as in pic 2). If you're using Carrara 2 you'll have to shift-select the vertices and then Ctrl+Shft+L. When you've done, make sure all your diagonal lines are selected (red) then choose Selection>Crease Edges>All as in pic 3. Your diagonals will turn yellow. Deselect them and they will turn blue. Now is probably a good time to curve the grid to the shape you want. Next, shift-select a row of the grey vertices (in the centers of the blue diamonds) then move them out slightly (pic 4). It's easiest to do this using a side view, choosing left or right so you can see a selected vertex. Repeat until all the grey vertices have been moved. That's it! HTH Mark

Great tutorial!! Thank you, Mark. I'll try it out right away. Johannes