CGMatter shows a fast way to create crumpled paper in Blender by using cloth simulation.

One of the best things about Blender is that it is incredibly flexible. A great example of this is this new tutorial from CGMatter, who shows how to crumple paper in Blender. You might think that there is a lot involved to not only create a crumpled piece of paper but also to animate it getting that way too. Of course, there is a simple solution that can take care of both, and that is by using cloth simulation.

CGMatter shows how you can affect a sheet of 3D paper (a plane) by using an animated sphere as the collision object for a cloth simulation in Blender. With a few modifications to some of the settings, the result is quite good! While on the subject of crushing things, you should check out a tutorial from Sardi Pax who showed a similar technique only using bones and deformers to create a crushed can.