Do your models ever contain strings, cords, or ropes with knots in them?

Do you dread having to model the knots?

Dread no more! I came across exactly this situation myself when I needed to model a dual-cord thumbknot for a helmet chinstrap.

I spent days trying to model a reasonable knot from scratch, and scouring the internet for free OBJ models of knots. I gave up several times, only to return and try again. Eventually I managed to produce a knot I was happy with, and I was really, really surprised how few vertices I actually needed. I ended up with a very basic mesh.

Apply multires/SubD in any 3D modelling program and it smooths out beautifully. Add some texturing and you won't believe it's such a simple mesh!

While I was in an enthusiatic mood I decided to try modelling some other lo-res knots and make the results available to everyone - see the original DAZ thread for more information and background http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/16296/

Included knots:

• Dual cord thumbknot (288 faces)

• Single cord thumbknot (64 faces)

• Loose reef knot (192 faces

• Tight reef knot (256 faces)

• Bowline (272 faces)

• Shoelace bow (368 faces)

• Three cord plait (576 faces)

• Six cord plait (1152 faces)

• Six cord ring (1152 faces) - suitable for bracelet, napkin ring, etc.

• Basic Plait segment (64 faces) - used to create the plaits and ring above.

• Straight cord (48 faces) - for extending the loose ends of the knots

All cords in all knots are UV-mapped to fill the square UV map. So if you join the open ends by merging appropriate vertices the combined mesh and use seamless textures you won't see any seams (but see the 'known issue 1' in the readme)

No restrictions at all on use, so you can incorporate these knots into your own models, freebie or commercial.

Happy splicing!

Pete

Who says you need high resolution models?!

Very impressed.

Thanks infinity10 - like I said, I was really amazed at how simple the solution  turned out to be! But even with such simple meshes there were still a few problems that I didn't spot in time.  So I'm copying the list of known issues from post #43 of the DAZ thread. Here it is:

***Known Issues With The First Batch Of Lo-Res Knots

1. The lengthwise seam on each cord, which was only used for UV-mapping, isn’t recorded in the OBJ file. So my advice to ‘ensure the seams line up’ if you connect the open end of one cord to the open end of another is impossible to follow! (That one’s mentioned in the readme)

2. The two reef knots use exactly the same mesh, so how come there’s such a big difference in the number of faces? I’ve messed something up there (I’m not on my own laptop so I can’t check) - probably duplicate vertices?

3. The bowline uses far more segments than any of the other knots, so when textured the spiraling cords appear much less tightly packed.

4. I think it was a mistake including loops as part of the knot mesh - i.e. the two loops in the shoelace bow mesh, and the single loop in the bowline mesh. If you want bigger loops you have to cut the existing loops, and even if you use a few StraightCord.obj segments as the basis for the bit you’re inserting you’ll get a seam mismatch at the edge loop you cut.

5. There are some minor mismatches along the lengthwise seams of some of the knots where I forgot to do one my UV-mapping steps.

I'm planning to sort these out as part of a second batch of knots. But that won't be for a couple of weeks, allowing time for more feedback and suggestions. It'll also give me time to complete another little project I'm working on...

Keep it up, 3dcheapskate!

I am impressed with the results! thanks for sharing.

Gendragon :-)