Hey guys!
I know this isn't much, but I was on vacation for the last few days and I still wanted to maintain my routine of publishing a project every week. Do you think it was smart to make the small "blocks"on the tire a different mesh then the tire itself, or should they really be one mesh? I tried the latter, but I found that I got too many faces, and the topology was a bit messy.
There's always been different ways to handle tire treads, as you describe. I know this will not be very helpful, but as long as the final result looks fine, whichever way works the best is fine (especially if it's not a job that's part of a pipeline).
I think you did a good job! Tire treads are always tricky and it can get really nerve-wracking to obtain a good result . I would suggest, if you haven't done it already, to check the Tire section of the Post-Apocalyptic Truck course: Jonathan explains very well all the stages for the "separated object" approach.