how to create good cables?

[shade]

Umm, have you tried subpatching the extruded cable? Make a square, make a spline line that goes where you want your cable to be? Move the square to the beginning of the spline (there's a plugin for this, align2rail I think, search from flay). Then rail extrude and turn subpatches on with TAB key?

[Destroyer111]

yep that was what i ment by saing that the railextrude looks very "artificial" and "straight" i subpatched it and also used the plug in you mentioned. but it looks not smooth enough for a real cable :(:(

[Cougar12dk]

Then all you need is to hit "TAB" afterwards and it'll clean up nicely plus it'll become a helluvalot more smooth and not have jaggy edges at all.

[samartin]

hmmm I dunno why you are having probs with the subpatched method, but if it isn't for you, maybe try magicbevel using a circle, that way you can define how many twists your cable will have...

I always struggle with rail extrude, etc...

[Freebooter]

I find a pentagon (5-sides) can work a bit better than a square when sub-patched into a cable, but it depends a lot on the cable.

How are you setting up your Rail Extrude? Try to use as few points as possible, the more points the more complexity and the greater the chances of screwing it up. As a general rule, don't use more than three points to define a basic curve, or five for a complex one. If your intended shape is really twisted or spring-like, try splitting the curve up into smaller segments and either rail extruding them seperately or, particularly in the case of a spring shape, creating a section and copy/paste/rotate/move it into position, then weld.

Also, don't use the extrude set to Automatic, it tends to create too much geometry, do set it to align, and experiment with the lengths and/or knots until you find something pleasing.

Furthermore, the alignment of the surface normal of the extruded object and the start/end point of the spline is quite important, the closer the alignment, the more predictable results you'll get.

Hope that helps,

Nic

[little5points]

destroyer, can you include an image of the result you are getting?

[Destroyer111]

no problem will post one using the tips above mentioned

thx for the replies:thumbsup:

[SNoWs]

try this:

I bet it is a display issue if I understand the problem right. Open the General options panel and change path divisions higher than 4 and see if that help display the subd cables better.

[softdistortion]

Some Dumb Comment?:blush:

[policarpo]

Try out Magic Bevel and then edit the vertices.

[SplineGod]

Destroyer,
Rail extrude works fine. If youre getting blocky looking results its probably the spline isnt smooth, your subpatch level is very low or you dont have smoothing turned on. Heres an example of a single square I rail extruded then beveled to create the connectors. Total time; 5 minutes. It works. Check and see if theres something else going on.

[Destroyer111]

Originally posted by SplineGod
Destroyer,
Rail extrude works fine. If youre getting blocky looking results its probably the spline isnt smooth, your subpatch level is very low or you dont have smoothing turned on. Heres an example of a single square I rail extruded then beveled to create the connectors. Total time; 5 minutes. It works. Check and see if theres something else going on.

yes i had a normal subpatch level 8 i guess. but i havn't turned smoothing on in surface editor.
looks far better now :thumbsup: although i'm not totally satisfied with the result but the rest is only a matter of tweaking

thanks for all the help

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