How to model spread book interior?

Question

I know the question can sound odd, but here's something I aim for:

I often need to create mockups, but I can't figure out how to model sheets of paper that are bent and closely packed. I tried to create planes with solidify modifier, bend them manually and then use array modifier to copy them. But it looks boring and unrealistic. I think that the visible pages should be created manually, but everything that lies beneath seems to be very hard to model in my case.

In the second example, you can see that sheets of paper seem to be different in size, position and maybe even in colour. The book's edge (the edge of the book's interior) looks rough just like in real world. I know it's a matter of randomness, but... how to achieve this kind of effect? I was wondering if my strategy of creating separate planes is good. Maybe there is a better way?

Basically, I'm looking for some idea that would help me to create bunch of pages that look like an open book.

Thanks in advance guys!

Answer 1

If you are trying to achieve a more organic render you could use an image of a book end or stack of paper as a texture and bump map. The "paper ends" image I captured for the texture/bumpMap is at the bottom of this post. I'm throwing it out to the Public Domaine CC-0.

The body of this book is a cube with some loop cuts which has a Lattice Modifier creating the bend. Then mirrored.

The two top pages are Bezier Curves which are Extruded. The Resolution of the curves was turned up to smooth the resulting curve.

Answer 2

I really like the approach suggested by Dontwalk as it seems easy to follow. However if you need a little more interesting structure than 2 chunks of paper split in the middle (as I needed), you can somewhat improve the method.

I've found this tutorial on Youtube. The flow is very similar but instead of using Lattice to bend you model separate chunks of paper already as you want them (according to your drawing/photo).

This part briefly:

1. Start with curves (make one and dulicate/adjust). You need a pair of curves for each chunk.
2. Convert all the curves to mesh.
3. Bridge Edge Loop between each pair of (formerly) curves.
4. Extrude the faces to the needed book length.
5. Subdiv Surf the chunks (optional)

I believe this technique adds to realism. And as already stated good textures are your big friends on book sides.

I've ended with something like this. It has three chunks (and two gaps inbetween) on each of two sides of the open book.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

I think that instead of actually modeling individual pages, you'd do best by modeling a solid chunk of pages and faking the look by applying a linear striped texture (Checker Texture with serious Mapping node distortions) to the sides. You can produce a result like the following.

Img 1:

Img 2:

You might not be able to see the difference in Img 1, but you wouldn't be able to in real life either.

You can apply multiple textures to an object by following the procedure outlined here. The basic thing I did for the side material was using a black and white Checker Texture which I stretched out sideways and then squashed as aided by a Mapping node. I then ran that through a Diffuse BSDF.

Node setup:

Here is the .blend with the book and texture.