Efficient ragged book pages

[Joelaff]

Anybody have any tricks for dealing with pages of a storybook that need to have ragged edges? The pages need to animate slowly-- flipping to the next page. Each page need to have a unique raggedness to it, and the pages need to have thickness.

Clip maps textures won't let me have thickness-- unless somebody has a work around for that?

Thick pages with modeled-in ragged edges would be pretty heavy for animation.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

[caypiranha]

... there was this displacement technique, where you can define the depth and you can set the cutoff range so you have a holes and thickness. Maybe one way. so you don´ t need to worry with heavy geometry.
Saw once that a kind of lace doilies has been made like this and it was looking pretty cool.

[Joelaff]

I know I can do that with like an inset copy of the outer edge shape, and displace to add an edge, but when I do that it does not have a back. It becomes more like a bottle cap, where the outer edge is extruded downwards, but the back of the page is open-- has no geometry "cap." Was there a method to get that thickness so you could see it from the side and both sides are capped? I mean I could do an interactive Shell modifier applied last, but that sometimes has its own issues.

Oh, the cuttoff range... Interesting. I will have to play with this. This may have some promise. Thanks.

[caypiranha]

I...but when I do that it does not have a back. It becomes more like a bottle cap, where the outer edge is extruded downwards, but the back of the page is open-- has no geometry "cap."
Oh, the cuttoff range... Interesting. I will have to play with this. This may have some promise. Thanks.

ah, I know what you mean I thought maybe so thin, it won´t be visible, but while slow moving... well, just in theory - never test ed it: double side materials may do something here? (Maybe you have to invert a map instance to play against the normal direction)
Maybe laet know what you ended up with? =)

[fixeighted]

I don't know whether a variation on this would work for you but it ends up being fairly tweakable/randomised.
This is just based on one base model based on a box with scale down edge thinning, subdivided to add jagged edges, retopologised/optimised to taste, then added noise seed to edges only.

[Joelaff]

That looks very nice. What do you mean by “scale down edge thinning” ?? fixeighted

Thanks.

[fixeighted]

Yeah it looks ok...I actually did a little upgrade with some worn page textures I found, so that added a lot, but it's really down to what reference you have that you need to work towards.
All I mean with the edges is to scale down the thickness at only the edges, where it'd be naturally thinner, like heavy grade watercolour paper (that I remember using years ago)...so it tapers to the ragged edge.
I did play around with adding some fur for the odd fibre, which can look ok too. Options....

[Mr.Mxyzptlk]

Could you use vray fur on the edges to give it some frayed fibers?

[Joelaff]

Thanks for the info fixeighted

Yes, fur is definitely in the cards for a little roughness. Always works well for that, when used judiciously.