Rips/ Rope, Maya 4.
 

Im working on a catapult. And on the basket i wanted cloth stretched across but draping off the sides and ripped... I know i could make the rips by splitpoly tool and trying to keep all edges 4 verts, and making the edges jagged, but i assume there would be an easier way right?

And i wanted rope tied around one of the beams, what would be the best way to make rope? Cylinder with a texture applied? If so where could i get the texture?

Transparancy map might work.

... mind... embeleshing a little... keep in mind im still very new to the program.

I think i might have a small inkling of what you mean...

Here's the gist of it.

http://www.mtmckinley.net/SimplyMaya/trans.jpg

so its like a alpha channel?

Do you know where i could get a transparency map for a rope?

I asume the render is grass right?

How is the color file orange, but the output is green?

Enough questions for you?

You might want to look again... the grass has nothing to do with it. It's the selected, orange object that is in question in my example.

For ropes, I generally just use thin cylinders. For game stuff, I'll usually make them 3-sided cylinders.

But for tears and rips and so on, I generally use transparancy maps, unless the project calls for something different.

As for the rope's texture, you can make it in Photoshop using photos source, hand painting, and/or both.

ah i think i see what you mean. Its a high map, black is very high, white is very low.

This might work.. it will be complicated though.

I dont know if it will work specifically for this project... i wanted the edge of the canvas to be ripped.

It's a transparancy map... black is transparant, white is opaque. I use them for rips around the edges of canvas quite often.

i assume you have to do them on flat objects?

don't necessarily have to.

Another (kinda cheap and messy!) way of faking non-dynamic (or dynamic, depends on what ya wanna do) rope would be to use PaintFX:
..unless it is for real-time game engines, in which case ignore me)

1. Draw a curve in the shape and path that you want your rope to be.
2. Change to the RENDERING menu set.
3. Choose: PAINT EFFECTS > GET BRUSH
4. When the visor opens, find a rope brush.
5. Select your curve.
6. SHIFT+select your rope brush.
7. Go back to the PaintEffects menu, and choose:
PAINT EFFECTS > CURVE UTILITIES > ATTACH BRUSH TO CURVE.

Here is a pic of the PFX way:

The rope on the right was using the "stringTHIN brush, with a global scale of 0.8 :)

Rage: I like the paint FX way. I couldnt get my rope to like like yours on the right, but that seems to be the style im going for. But a little more practice and i should get it.

How did you make the spiral?

And thanks for the very easy to follow directions.