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I'm creating a logo reveal for my business as it's in need of one, however we want the background to feature a polygon pattern that raps around the entire scene like a sphere. It must not be a texture either as we want it to be 3 dimensional. I would create one off the bat by adjusting some vertices but it doesn't look authentic enough. I've got a picture of the sort of pattern we want but we'd have it on a much larger scale.

http://www.superbwallpapers.com/vector/blue-polygon-28641/

Is there a modifier or generator that can produce such shapes?

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  • $\begingroup$ Flat shading, triangulate, displace, sharp lighting, and low poly count $\endgroup$ – VRM Mar 18 '15 at 20:05
  • $\begingroup$ @NoviceInDisguise The main focus needs smooth shading. Would there be a way to separate the two somehow so only the low poly pattern has flat shading? $\endgroup$ – Stewie Mar 18 '15 at 20:09
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    $\begingroup$ Flat shading for the specific object $\endgroup$ – VRM Mar 18 '15 at 20:10
  • $\begingroup$ Ahh yes, sorry, was thinking of shadow casting being flat haha. $\endgroup$ – Stewie Mar 18 '15 at 20:16
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I'd use a combination of the Displace and Decimate modifiers:

enter image description here

For the above image I used a UV sphere, but you'll notice some stretching at the poles. For this reason I found a icosphere with a high-ish amount of subdivisions (I used 6) works a bit better. I did not use any subsurf for the icosphere.

For the displace texture I used Clouds with a fairly small size (the size you want may vary depending on the size of your object and polygons):

To animate it, set the displace modifier to use another object for the texture coordinates. Add an empty at the center of the sphere and specify it in the displace modifier.

enter image description here

Then animate the scale of the empty:

Dynamic topology sculpting can be used to create this effect with more control, but it may not be very convenient for animation.

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  • $\begingroup$ An idea just popped to mind. Would I be able to use the ocean modifier to make the polys move randomly? $\endgroup$ – Stewie Mar 18 '15 at 20:11
  • $\begingroup$ @Stewie That might work, but I think I'd use the displace modifier with an Object Offset. Updating answer.. $\endgroup$ – gandalf3♦ Mar 18 '15 at 20:13
  • $\begingroup$ That's exactly what I was looking for! I'll have a play around and see how it goes. $\endgroup$ – Stewie Mar 18 '15 at 21:26
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To your sphere add these modifiers.

  1. Add a Displace modifier with a cloud texture as the texture.
  2. Add a Decimate modifier, set to Collapse.

These are the modifiers on my grid object.
enter image description here

This is the result. result

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You should use the Displace and Triangulate modifiers.

Start by adding (Shift+A) and subdividing (W) a Grid:

Add Grid

Now add a Triangulate modifier, and then a Displace modifier. The triangulate modifier will make your mesh act as if it were created with triangular faces, and the Displace will move random vertices to give those faces a random slope/shadow. You may need to subdivide again to get the right size, or adjust the strength to get the right slope.

Add Modifiers

Now just make sure the lighting setup is as you want, and you are good to go. I noticed that a Sun Lamp at a bit of an angle seemed to make it much nicer. You can of course put the background on another Render-layer if it interferes with the lighting on the main subject.

Final Result

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