Conforming patterned thin film to a surface

[jreeder]

Hi,

I'm trying to conform a couple of thin films on top of each other to a complex shape. I am trying to conform the one in this picture: http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?11271/ to the red object in "untitled.3.jpg".

My final result should look exactly like "untitled.3.jpg", but with the gold and silver patterns seen at the link to the website on top of the silver film.

I've tried the "cloth" modifer, but it seems it only works to conform planes and not solids. I've also looked at "flex" and "skin", but still no luck. 

What modifer would be best to accomplish this? I would like to be able to tune how much the film conforms to the surface.

Thanks!

Edit: Here's the CAD model for the assembled thin films: https://www.dropbox.com/s/cr1tihhpztz1azy/activematrix_martin.asm.11

And the model for the red object: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0p7ikif7xc69mw7/lefthoratic.SLDPRT

Sorry the different filetypes, the first is a ProE file, the second is a Solidworks file.

[Brock_Lafond]

Are you able to provide file types compatible with 3DS Max?

FBX, IGES, OBJ, STL for example.

It seems that I need Solidworks installed and running in order to import the file properly.

The ProE file doesn't seem to translate properly when opening in Max 2014.

[jreeder]

Here is the red part (.igs): https://www.dropbox.com/s/xcw6mxj0slwklee/lefthoratic.IGS

And the thin film (.max) which is big, 180mb: https://www.dropbox.com/s/50uqz4s8x6r0633/activematrix.max

Please let me know if you can't open them.

[Brock_Lafond]

A purely geometric solution seems to be a rather difficult proposal. The polygon density off all areas of the mesh need to be even throughout to implement any sort of dynamic approach.

Is a texture based approach acceptable?

With the provided objects for the thin film object I was able to extract a height map and from that produce opacity and bump maps.

In the attached test image I applied a material to a plane using the above mentioned maps. The plane had a polygonal resolution of 200 x 200 and I performed a cloth simulation to get its final resting form.

This could be taken a step further and it is possible to create masks for the various component types. This would allow for an entirely texture based approach with many different material types applied to the same object.

[jreeder]

Thanks! That's much better than what I was able to get.

A texture map is fine, as long as I can apply seperate materials to the layers. I'm learning how to map bitmaps to materials now, but is it possible to make an opacity map with an AutoCAD file (.dxf or .dwg) instead of having to make a bitmap?

[Brock_Lafond]

To make the opacity map it's just a matter of colouring the electronic bits white and everything else black. Render it out with a straight-on orthographic view.

The attached image was originally rendered at 8K.