A Fine Mess...

[RobNJ73]

I'm having a little trouble making heads or tails of the makeup of a handrail that I need to model for one of my current projects. I'm attaching the one (and only) reference image I've been given (and only image I've been able to find of this specific sculpted handrail) with the hopes that someone could help me make heads or tails of this structure.

 

Then there's the question of how do I approach modeling it in Max, but that's a question for another time...

 

Any thoughts on clearing up the structure of this handrail so it makes enough sense to model would be appreciated.

[AJLynn]

Take a basic frame-and-membrane (1) but put it on a stair (2). Make the membrane not connect up at the bottom (3) - which does make it a lot less structurally efficient, but heck, it's a railing. You can cut a bunch of holes in it (4) to decrease the weight.

 

Now make multiple layers of the membrane and make it fancier. The upright balusters at the top and bottom are holding up the whole thing, the rail is tying those together and the funky cut up panel is adding to the rigidity of the system.

[Camelpoo]

For quick and easy holes inside the frames I would create the recurring wobbly triangle brush in PS (with pretty high random values) then paint 3 opacity maps and place 3 'planes' close to each other each with their own map.

If that makes any kind of sense at all.

[Tommy Burns]

Now that's a tough one!!!

Seems to me though the template for that design was just a bunch of overlapping circles with the same radius and they filled in the gaps. If that's the case you could make a map in PS black and white and use it as a cut out map. It's a tricky one but maybe someone else might elaborate on this.

Hope this helps

[RobNJ73]

First off, thanks for the quick replys guys... the help is much appreciated.

 

For better or worse, it's out of the way for the time being...

 

AJ - That approach was my first thought too, but when I started putting it together that way (layers of holed membranes), it looked like something was missing. I looked at the image again and it looks like the different layers of membrane are attached to each other at points (part of layer 1 are welded to layer 3, parts of layer 2 are welded to layer 1, and so on...).

 

Marius and Tommy - Unfortunately, this sculpture railing is a centerpiece of the needed rendering... opacity maps, while my first choice, wouldn't have given me the depth I needed from this MC Escher-esque bit of geometry.

 

I wound up modeling the individual triangular pieces and placing/weaving them to get the desired effect. Not thrilled with the way it looks, but deadlines being what they are, I think the attached image of the model gets the point across.

 

Thanks again for the help, guys...