Best way to animate flexible wires, cables, amnd tubing

KazeoHin

Hey guys, I'm doing a bit of a hardsurface project, and included with it are a lot of wires, tubes and cabling.

something along the lines of this:



what is the best way to model and animate the tubing and cabling so that moves realistic(ish) and does not shear, skew or stretch unrealistically? I ask this early on, because I have a feeling that this will need a bit of modelling forethought as well as rigging know-how. I'm going to need to animate 50+ independent cables, so I am more concerned with efficient, quick techniques versus super quality ones. though, I'm open if you wish to share either.

I did a google search, which yielded unsatisfactory results, and my knowledge of animation is lacking compared to my modelling skills.

I appreciate your help!

JohnnyRaptor

is this for a realtime engine or you going to render it in max/maya/etc

Dickie

yeah first question, realtime or not, if you're in max the splineIK modifier is great

KazeoHin

JohnnyRaptor wrote: »

is this for a realtime engine or you going to render it in max/maya/etc

I plan to just pose and render it, its not meant for real time.

JohnnyRaptor

well, if you want to be able to pose the wires, either individually, or in groups of wires, rather than have them deform along with the limbs, then theres no real shortcut.

youll have to rig and skin them, either with for example, free-floating joints or a spline/ribbon ik as mentioned above.

Weso

If you're not animating and it's only going to be made for still poses, you might be better off posing it and modelling the cables at the very end. If the rig would take more time than the modelling, and it's not going to be animating anyway, you could save a lot of time and effort.