Thanks. To get the "real" effect you really need displacment mapping (for closeups) and for that which also adds to file size.
Anyway, will investigate the bump/image approach some more. I have lots (umpteen!) of shader room weave type plugins but none suitable for this particular plaited need.

Hi Brian,

> To get the "real" effect you really need displacment mapping
> (for closeups) and for that which also adds to file size.

For most renderers, a displacement map is only applied during render time to create more detailed objects just in memory. It should not normally increase the size of the file on just on disk (but I suppose this is possible if your software happens to work that way...)

But anyway, I'd think that it would be a pretty unusual shot to be really close up to a rope... If you really did want to do a closeup on one rope, then it would probably work ok to do a detailed model of just that piece and then do texture mapping for all the other ones.

- Michael

As a once Pro photographer, AND a keelboat owning sailor--and my favourite 14mm lens on the camera, coiled rope right in the very foreground of the shot was --should I say ,"essential"? (And now I struggle and puff to get to answer the front door!---)

I have a plugin shader question, asked of the weave shader maker, on the go.

As Michael said, something like this can (and should) be done as a single tubular surface with displacement/normal mapping. The results are 100% believable and much more easy to deal with for your system. Only a madman would attempt to use thousands of feet of modeled rope in an animation. That being said, carry on with your modeling! :)

jonah

EDIT - Here is a starting point for you to make modeled rope. Select the two clover profiles, then sweep them along the two helices...