I use Sketch because, as a web designer, that’s what I am most comfortable with but you can use any vector app.įor step 4 there’s a few things I do to make the model ready. Once happy I export the model as an SVG and then import into Sketch to add colours, tweak the paths (round corners on some shapes), and add instructions. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until I’m happy with the model.Back to Blender, I can now adjust the model again based upon what I saw when I folded it.This time I print and build the paper toy so I can see what I want to change. Tweak the Blender mesh and then unfold again.From here I can work out how the mesh will fold and what I want to change or tweak. Use Unfolder to unfold the Blender mesh.Design the mesh in Blender (I started learning Blender in the new year – I want to do more 3d stuff).So far I have designed 2 models so I suspect things will change but currently my process is: I’ve been thinking about making my own designs for a while, I wanted to make something for Brush Ninja, and from the first time I made someone elses model I’ve been considering how I would design and create the models and I’ve slowly come up with a method that seems to work well. You can see some of the FoldUpToys models behind the little fellow. You have to cut out the shapes, then score the fold lines, then pre-fold, before finally gluing the thing together.

The actual building of them is quite therapeutic. Most of the designs I have built are from FoldUpToys – a paper toy designer I’ve been following for a while. In fact, I’ve recently gotten into making papercraft toys, both building, and designing them. To celebrate Queen Elizabeths Platinum Jubilee I designed a little papercraft version of her crown. Model is wip there are some invisible cushions that are not detailed yet.JBen Jubilee Crown Papercraft – and how I made it So currently what’s working for me is use the mira tools to flatten object and use surface deform on details that need to wrap. Surface modifier worked flawlessly in everything I needed to do (again, you can see in the picture what I’m doing so I’m not saying that it will work in all cases) Three major things I found important for ease of use:ġ: Object converted to uv space should be scaled as close to real object size in 3d as it can (those “mira tools” do that very nicely)Ģ: Instead of duplicate, the shape key should be part of the same object that needs to be flattened (again, “mira tools” do that)ģ: Both methods - mesh modifier in your addon and whatever method mira tools are using gave me some distortions when wrapping patterns and meshes around shape-keyed objects. I found that none of the two worked flawlessly for my purpose.

I’m going to test your addon on actual hires model I want to make and post findings and results here. This way I don’t need uv view open and don’t have to go to shape keys and manually delete modifiers if I want to make the adjustments… So the whole tool could be in its own tab having mesh texture button an on off switch and reset button. Maybe this can be customized on the user end I dunno, I’m still not very fluid with blender after years of max and maya.Īlso the if the tab was in the 3Dviewport window, could it have access to shape key control?(maybe even just as an on/off - 0/1 switch to) and a reset button (delete modifiers to allow for quick fixes and adjustments). It’s a very simple process I love it the way you made it, but wouldn’t it make sense to have the controls on main/3D viewport tab instead UV controls? The whole wrapping and adjusting will be done in 3D viewport I guess, so I’m having UV/image editor open just to access single mesh texture button. Quick test of your addon seem to work fine, although right from the start I made a mistake by having my “decorative” mesh partialy bellow ground/flattened uv mesh and as such the solidify didn’t wrap the whole mesh.

Both of those solutions seem to be exactly what I want!

Mesh unfolder demo