This tutorial will explain how to create the tyre tread as shown here (Fig.00).
Fig.00
You can start the treading from box modelling or splines. I personally use splines for 90% of my work, but if using splines then you will need to tidy up the model to clean up the geometry (Fig.01).
Fig.01
Delete half of the model so we can later mirror it. Select the faces and bevel them out enough to get some depth. Then select the edges of the model and bridge them to the other sides (Fig.02).
Fig.02
Instance a set of 3 in a row to make the top and bottom of the edges match up. This will help with welding the points later on (Fig.03).
Fig.03
Add an edit poly and hit tessellate twice. This will make the edges nice and smooth when we add a mesh smooth (Fig.04).
Fig.04
Add a mesh smooth modifier (Fig.05).
Fig.05
Add edit poly and start selecting edge loops that are not needed. Then remove them until they are on the edges, to make it smooth. I use Ctrl + Backspace to make this easier, but save often before doing this (Fig.06 – 07).
