In a 3D printer group I belong too, someone asked if anyone had a model of a “loot crate” for the game Call of Duty World at War II and posted a picture. Seeing as I’ve worked with the guys who made the earlier version of the game. It peeked my interest and I took a stab and banged something out, quickly.
However I’m not sure how to add some wood grain/gouges/chunks of missing wood to the model. I was thinking of making a few small models and using the solid tool to subtract. I have a feeling this could be done easier as I need to model something random and small that is a solid.
Am I thinking about this all wrong? Please note this model will be exported as a STL for printing.
Maybe add in some irregular shapes which can be extruded with the follow me tool. The right combination of irregular paths, combined with a gouge like, or chamfer like, profile. . . could go a long way towards creating some worn edges and surfaces.
Also consider looking at this from the perspective of a mesh surface… you can create and manipulate pit marks and splits by moving nodes around.
Eneroth, has a good plugin which creates eroded landscape effects called ‘Eneroth Fractal Terrain Eroder’. If you can find the right settings to tame the erosion factor, yet still maintain enough of the distressed flat plank geometry that you’re probably looking for, then maybe you can automate this whole thing via this (or some other) plugin.