How would you do this?

EscapeArtist · 6 Sept 2010, 16:12

I'm trying to make a hose along a path. One way to do it is to make the shape, multiply it, and then use bend tools to bend it how I want. But that's very tedious and difficult to do accurately and some geometry starts disappearing. What would be ideal is a "lathe along path" or something, but is there any other way? One of the "-by rails" plugins? Component stringer?

pilou · 6 Sept 2010, 16:23

Does the tube must be "spiraled" or just "cylindric" as the little module shown?

EscapeArtist · 6 Sept 2010, 17:21

No twist necessary; in fact preferably not.

Box · 6 Sept 2010, 17:52

This was done quickly with Component Stringer.

EscapeArtist · 6 Sept 2010, 18:59

That's pretty darn good Ben. I'm hoping for something more contiguous like the hose I bent at the top, I'll be rendering it and want it to look good. Maybe intersecting and using your method will do, but that would mean a lot of cleanup work.

Box · 6 Sept 2010, 19:04

I'm sure you can achieve what you want with a little work, I only threw that together.

If you make the component just like you want and move the axis to the centre of the component it will follow whatever line you want.

EscapeArtist · 8 Sept 2010, 14:26

Looks good. Will give it a shot.

EDIT: Unfortunately I have some tight turns that cause the component ends to leave gaps, if I extend the component to close the gap it protrudes beyond the component wall. Dang.

Jim · 8 Sept 2010, 18:25

Maybe FredoScale could Bend a straight section well enough?

Box · 8 Sept 2010, 18:57

You could "make Unique" the ones with gaps and just tweak them a bit, rotate the end to fit the gap.

EscapeArtist · 8 Sept 2010, 23:28

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I've mostly given up for now, there's just too much cleanup work involved in stringing components, so I've settled for just a tube along path. Ideally a lathe along path would be great, but it simply doesn't exist for SU.

Box · 9 Sept 2010, 08:22

If you use components and make a pipe, then bend it using Fredoscale Radial bender you have no cleanup.
The components fit together and adjust themselves for the curves.

Chris Fullmer · 10 Sept 2010, 02:49

Have you tried shape bender on it? That should do the trick, though it might take a lot of processing time. And you might have to scale it up if it is creating a lot of small faces.

Chris

jeff hammond · 10 Sept 2010, 03:46

ShapeBender: