modeling and placing of wire cables

tekmatic

Hi everyone,

How do you guys go around modeling cables and wires and the get them to wrap around objects? For example a power cable that can needs to be wound around a pole or a fence etc....

If anyone can direct me to a tut would be very much appreciated.

BreaK-

What I would do is model a EP curve, position it where it needs to be, and extrude it using a nurbs circle. Then convert the nurbs into polys.

I learnt that method from Digital tutors, there may be an even better way that im not aware of.

This kinda shows the process, but its an awful video.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN285XKo0Ac"]Autodesk Maya Tutor : Create wires in NURBS - YouTube[/ame]

tekmatic

Hey there Break,

Thanks for the info, I will take a look at the video once I get home since I don't have access to it here at work. I did try the EP curve (I am using Maya 2011 BTW).

But placing those wires to look natural as they would if they hanged from other objects to be quite challenging.:poly127:

Lamont

I think this is on the Wiki, but there is a thread and MoP made a tool to un-hide these features.

Here it is: ::LINK::

If you need anything else, there's some ants...

Toast

I think turning your mesh into a live object and drawing an ep curve on top will be one way to do it.

You will have to subdivide your mesh a few times though as you can draw, in live mode, on the center of a face only. But it's one method.

knak47

I don't know if this was mentioned but I believe if you download the Soulburn scripts ther is a "paint spline" tool. It creates really dense meshes, but once you create you're general path you can just select a loop along what you painted and use the "create shape from selection" trick. This method works well if you are indeed trying to paint on something. If you want hanging wires, the kind that droop, I would apply a cloth modifier to a rendered spline or a cylinder just make sure in the modifiers options you pin your ends that you want stationary. Also play around with the gravity and try a bunch of presets. If your cable/ wire gets to deformed you can always grab a loop off of it as I mentioned before.

haiddasalami

What I do is create my curve and extrude from a cylinder, Increase divisions and then model/add edge loops where I need to.