DL (mediafire)
Today I bring you not cc, but a small collection of .blend files for making cc a little easier. If you've ever wanted to quickly put a braid into a custom hair without completely obliterating your poly count*, then these might be able to help.
*braids will still add a LOT of polygons to your hair, but since every single polygon is visible** on these tiling braids, at least you know they're all being put to use, whereas if you were to physically braid 3 strands of geometry, lots of those polygons would wind up inside the braid, just adding to your count without contributing anything to the look
**if some polygons end up inside of other meshes, you may want to delete them to reduce the poly count further. The boolean modifier may be able to help you, but I haven't tried
These are completely hollow, tiling braid "facades". They just look like a braid, without being anything more than a stylized tube. Available in 9 shapes (which are all pretty similar, more or less, but have different 'vibes', and one of them technically doesn't resemble a braid, but if you squint it looks close enough) and 3 polygon counts to hopefully fit in with your project.
TOU: Same as my cc. Read it here. I obviously don't own this concept, so feel free to reverse engineer, make your own braid tiles, etc. Just don't use mine for anything commercial (using them in commissions is fine, just not paywalled final products!)
You will need to be using one of the newer versions of blender, I believe 2.8 and up. These were made in blender 3.6, so the files will not be compatible with old versions like 2.7x.
Quick start guide:
Open your hair wip's .blend
In object mode, 'Append' the 'BraidTile' object of your choice
Select 'BraidPath' and, in Edit mode, position it however you like
Additional info under the cut, because I tend to ramble, and these require a little bit of a primer before use, probably. Unless you for sure know what you're doing, in which case, feel free to just take these and run with them.
THIS IS NOT A TUTORIAL ON MAKING HAIR, OR HOW TO USE BLENDER. Seek that information elsewhere.
Before appending braids, you may want to open up the blender file and look at all the shapes, to decide which one you want to use.
When you first append your braid, or open the blend files, you may notice it does not look like the preview images above, and instead looks like a shiny pink slug. This is intentional! For previews and development work, I use @/simandy's base textures, but your hair will probably be using a different texture, so I have not included a texture at all.
Simply switch the material of the 'BraidTile' to the same material your hair is using, and adjust the uv map accordingly. I'm going to assume if you are making hairs that you know how to do that, so it will not be explained here.
Once you have your braid appended, and have edited the UV Map of the 'BraidTile' piece to your liking, you can also try scaling the tile in the X, Y, and Z axes to change up the look a little. Make sure you select all of the vertices before scaling, to make sure it still tiles. This should be safe to do, and not mess up the tiling at all, but make sure you do it in Edit mode, not Object mode. (If you mistakenly do it in Object mode, you just have to press ctrl+A and select 'scale', and that should fix it)
When you have your braid adjusted, switch over to the 'BraidPath' object, and use edit mode to move the points around however you want. This is just like any other hair strand, if you're used to making hairs with paths and curves then this should already be familiar to you. All the same controls should work.
And, if you already have a curve in your hair that you'd like the braid to snap to instead, you can select the 'BraidTile' object, locate the curve modifier, and switch the curve object to any other curve in your .blend. You'll want to change the curve in the array modifier to the same one, most likely.
If you haven't used curves to make a hair before, here's a couple quick controls you might like to know:
ctrl+T will let you Twist the object around the selected point(s)
alt+S will let you Scale the object around the selected point(s)
selecting the first or last point of the 'BraidPath' and pressing E will Extrude a new point, making your braid longer
Remember to do all of your positioning on the 'BraidPath' object! You do not need to edit the 'BraidTile' at all once you've set up the UV map and adjusted the scale!
It should tile, twist, etc. with little issue, and should get longer or shorter according to the length of your curve with no issue. If it doesn't, make sure both the array and curve modifiers of your 'BraidTile' object are using the same curve. They should be using the 'BraidPath' object by default, but if you changed this manually, ensure that both modifiers match for best results.
Unless you know what you are doing, I do not recommend messing with any other settings in the modifiers, or adjusting the 'BraidTile' mesh in any way besides scaling the entire object at once. Otherwise you could end up with gaps and holes in your braid.
When you are done posing your braid, you can apply the modifiers to turn the whole thing into a regular mesh. I like to make a copy of my 'BraidTile' and 'BraidPath' first, just in case I want to go back and change the shape later. After converting it to a regular mesh, I'd recommend going in with proportional editing turned on and randomly scale and move a few of the pleats just a little, to make the braid look a little more organic. You can even add a couple strands to make it look messier, if you dont mind adding to your poly count even more. But this comes down to your preference and style. The braid below has had some half-assed editing done to demonstrate the concept. (Note: This is actually the low-poly version of this particular braid shape)
Ultimately, it is up to you to decide how you want to blend the braid in with the rest of your hairstyle. I can't tell you how to do that, as it is ultimately going to come down to your own personal preference, workflow, and the hairstyle you are making.
How do I know if I should use Hi, Mid, or Lo poly?
This is largely due to personal preference, and how you're using the braids in your project. I have included the three different poly versions to try and be mindful of the overall poly count of your poor poor meshes, but even a lo-poly braid is going to add an easy couple thousand polygons to your project. Keep that in mind! If you plan on having a LOT of braids, something like this EA hairstyle, for example:
You will probably want to follow their example and use a very simple mesh and just apply a braid texture instead of using these. EA's braids here appear to be a simple box shape painted to look like braids.
If you only plan on having one, maybe two braids in your entire project, especially if they are very large braids, then you might want to go with the hi-poly option. They're the smoothest, roundest choice.
If your braid has a very small diameter, you can probably get away with just using the lo-poly option, and save some polygons you won't need anyway.
The mid-poly version exists as a sort of happy medium. They aren't quite as pointy as some of the lo-poly shapes, and they won't inflate your poly count as much as the hi-poly models, so you may find you prefer them for your applications.
It's all very subjective.
I think that's pretty much everything I wanted to say. If you have specific questions, my inbox is open.
Keep in mind I am not very skilled in blender! There's probably some optimization that can be done if you know what you're doing, and I welcome you to tweak these meshes to your heart's content, if that's you! I made these for me, but I figure they could make someone else's life a little easier too, so here you go.
If you make anything using them you are welcome to tag me! If you don't end up making anything with these then I hope you at least have some fun playing with them!
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🌸 4t2 everyday clutter kit ✨
happy wednesday! as i’m quickly approaching my next milestone, you can consider this part one or a prelude to it lmao. and well, i did not expect to take this long but here are 19 items from the everyday clutter kit by EA. you can check out the rest of the items in the kit here.
please let me know if there’s any issues, enjoy!~ ʕっ˘ڡ˘ςʔ
files are compressed. polycount + add’l info under the cut.
download: [sfs] | [box] ♡
credits: EA.
notes: it’s all deco, however i did manage to make a functional stereo version of the boom blocks. it doesn’t have the fx on purpose, i found the stereo rings to be annoying but rest assured it works just as intended. i really wanted to make the jewelry stand functional, but i struggled immensely with it lol. (believe me, somehow it worked only for it throw errors the next day like ?!) so please, if you have the skills go for it!! i accepted defeat with that haha. most items have subsets, but not all. and for some reason, the functional boom blocks did not like it when i attempted to add subset lol. also, i added a collection file this time around! it made sense being a kit and all. it has the EA Games logo on it. :]
POLYCOUNT:
a slightly creative collection - 323 polys
antique spare watch - 278 polys
beacon of intention active set - 324 polys
boom blocks - 369 polys
coinoctagon - 249 polys
gym in a box - 371 polys
invincible frame tray - 384 polys
mega magazine stack - 134 polys
once a pawn a time chess set - 328 polys
procrastinator’s box of stuff - 271 polys
sealine memories - 885 polys | wall hanging
shine on shine off - 382 polys | mirror
snack pack to go - 218 polys
spare specs - 242 polys
subtle serve makeup kit - 312
the adoringly adorned jewelry stand - 308 polys
the pro-tector - 323 polys
the thirsty thermos - 92 polys | repo’d to gym in a box
trinketville - 74 polys
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