Any good workflow for modelling timber beams?

[tricky]

I am looking into ways to give some 'life' to some timber beams in a building we are working on. The beams aren't perfect - something like this:-
http://images.wisegeek.com/view-of-2...from-below.jpg

The beams themselves will, however, will be stained/treated white.

Anyone have a good method to add some none-uniformity to the edges? We usually use something like vrayedgestex in the bump slot to add 'life' to metal frames etc. That can sometimes work well. However, this requires a bit more thought.

I've thought about triangulating the beam into tiny little 10-20mm triangles, then add some xyz noise, but not sure if this is the best approach.

[joconnell]

Randomly select edges and chamfer them? Seems like either paint a mask for the edges and then displace, or use something like the built in paint deformer in edit poly to sculpt a bit.

[MoonDoggie]

I'd model 1 really nicely and unwrap it well, then displacement map them for the final.

[Neilg]

I'd model 1 really nicely and unwrap it well, then displacement map them for the final.

I'd do this too. If you don't see the ends, make one that's 5x longer than you need so you can randomly shift the maps along it's length for variation.

[tricky]

Thanks guys. Will pass this on and give it a try.

[wxyz]

Use something like VizPark CrossMap with displacement?