I'm making my xmas card but want to put some tinsel on the tree. Only problem is, I don't know how! Anyone got any ideas?

Here's a quickie I tried using the terrain editor I drew a thin line and made the terrain flatter. Its not fantastic but with some tweaking it might work although I bet it would be hard to position a thousand of these on a tree, lol.

maybe it would be better as a lattice?

Yeah, I've been experimenting with terrains and lattices but what I really need is for it be spikey like real tinsel. (Yes, I tried using the spikes option!)

lattice is better. the edges are more like tinsil, now the hard part is getting the shape right.

Hmmm, my tinsil has always look like this, maybe we are using the same name for different things?

Maybe try only one side with a slight 90 on top, No one is going to know it's not draped over the branch. There will be bunches of the stuff anyway.

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Ockham's razor- It's that simple

Is this more what you're talking about? but with shorter spikes? This could be done with multrep alone a curved path to look more like the stuff I've seen, again this was just a quickie I tried.

I haven't figured out yet how to use paths :(

Attached Link: http://www.mardigrasoutlet.com/_images/products/degarld_f2.jpg

I think there's a mix-up here. I'm talking about the stuff that wrap around the tree, not the stuff that come in little strands that look like icicles.

It's hard to find a pic of what I'm talking about! See the pic above for what I mean.

Ang25:> yeah, that's the stuff! Can never get multirep to work the way I want, though!

Make a cylinder, attributes 0.3 30.0 0.3 then multirep 10(this number could be less) at rotation of 20 in the x direction. group, then multirep in x offset, that will get you what I've got. from there play with the various settings. For me its trial and error. Now if someone could tell us how to make this follow a path that would be great, I think there is a preset path the spirals downward and outward like around a tree.

A Garland??

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Ockham's razor- It's that simple

Oh this would be awesome if it could be made into one of those pipe thingies that Madmax made! Bendable poseable!

Yes ICM LOL, a garland out here in our part of the woods. But then garland can be so many different things I didn't dare call it that. I guess our tinsil is called icycles where warewullf comes from. Just moving from Mass to NY gave me some language problems. What I called elastics they call rubberbands here. And if you say you want a drink from the bubbler they look at you like you have 3 eyes out here. They call them water fountains, and I still don't know what they call those big fountains in the parks cause thats what I call a water fountain. :)

Aha! I may have something here. I imported a greyscale pic of snowflake, made it into a lattice, flattened it then multireplicated it 20 times and offset it by 2. This let a bit of a gap so I just grouped the first 20, then duplicated them again and moved it a bit to fill the gaps. Set the material to silver, up the ambiance a bt and there ye go. This has possibilites! Thanks for your help, guys!

I live in Ireland, and we call garlands Tinsel. S'funny how little things like that are different, depending on where you are!

:-) well I'm glad you got it worked out. And it doesn't even take a whole ocean to change what things are called. Like I said up two posts, I just moved from one state to another (that are next to each other) and I came up against a lot of new terms. Good luck and I'd love to see the finished image if you'd like to post it here. :-D

It's a tinsel rope.... :)

To me the first couple of pictures posted look like lametta (sp?), the garland/tinsel is tinsel and a garland would be a natural or natural looking version as though made from pine or holly!

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.

I know it as garland, also. I like the way it came out, Ang. If you figure out how to multi rep it into a spiral, let me know. I have a lot of trouble with multi repping on a curve so it looks good. One more thing, Ang. Where in NY did you move to? I live right over the border in NJ from NYC. 10 Minutes from the Lincoln tunnel. If ya needz helps wit da tranzlashunz, all ya gotta do iz azk. It wood be no problum.

Because I like to blow $%&# up.

Don't fear the night.  Fear what hunts at night.

LOL Boomer! I'm not exactly a New Yorker. I'm an Upstate New Yorker. I'm between Binghamton and Syracuse. I've never been near NYC. Thats like a whole other state. I've been to Atlantic City NJ once, that was a fun but short trip. Passed thru Pennsyvania to get there :-D. I wonder how madmax did his smartpipe and if its possible to do something similar with the garland. That would be awesome! Take Care, Angela

Well, if yuz eva makes down hea, yaz gots ta let me no. hehe Don't know how max did that, but I need to work on my multi repping. Drives me up a wall.

Because I like to blow $%&# up.

Don't fear the night.  Fear what hunts at night.

He He, I make fairly regular trips to Whippany/Morristown area, I'd luv to meet some of you next time I'm over there....

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.

That would be cool. That's only about 30 minutes away from me. Give me a heads up next time you come out this way and we'll get together. Where would you be coming from? boomer70@optonline.net

Because I like to blow $%&# up.

Don't fear the night.  Fear what hunts at night.

London, Heathrow fly to Newark and usually stay in the Marriott on route 10. Don't know when the next trip is due, the company have thinned out travel, but I'd guess end of Jan / early Feb.

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.

That would be cool. I'm 15 minutes from Newark Airport and like I said, not far at all from Morristown. When you do come out, make another post and we'll see if we can get a few of us from here together.

Because I like to blow $%&# up.

Don't fear the night.  Fear what hunts at night.

Would be great, will do when the travel get's firmed up.

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Toolset: Blender, GIMP, Indigo Render, LuxRender, TopMod, Knotplot, Ivy Gen, Plant Studio.