Making tubes

[stunndman]

what first comes to my mind is an animated sweep

draw a curve along which your tube will flow

now make a nurbs circle primitive - attach it to the curve (attach to motion path)

either setup some expressions to modify it's radius over time or keyframe it's scale

Animate->Create Animated Sweep

with expressions you can even make more or less sharp edges

[mushroomgod]

extrude along a path, works for me :)

[stunndman]

Originally posted by mushroomgod
extrude along a path, works for me :)

how do you get the change in shape along the extrude? am i missing some option with extrude? that would help me out too

[Neil]

Maybe this will help clarify. B/c when i scale the faces out to buldge it, the faces start going up instead of out.
And if i try to scale them back down, it screws up b/c the global axis is not in line with the direction of the arm.
Does this help clarify it?
Thanks

[Jhonus]

once you have pressed extrude, rather than scaling, try using the move tool set to object mode.

[Neil]

But if you use the move tool you can only go on the x,y,z and that still doesn't help, b/c the tube isnt parallel to the x,y, or z.

[svenip]

if you would like to have more than one profil you can do it by just duplicating the profiles to the desired postion (set the pivot to the center of the resulting object and then duplicate and rotate). after that you can use the simple loft and get your result.

Originally posted by stunndman


how do you get the change in shape along the extrude? am i missing some option with extrude? that would help me out too

[OrestesMantra]

*Puzzled look*

I dont get it either....Could someone give a more detailed guide to making the "Ridges"?

[Jhonus]

Originally posted by Neil
But if you use the move tool you can only go on the x,y,z and that still doesn't help, b/c the tube isnt parallel to the x,y, or z.

are you talking about it not being parallel to x,y and z in respect to global, local or object mode? (Or all of them :))

[stunndman]

Originally posted by OrestesMantra
*Puzzled look*

I dont get it either....Could someone give a more detailed guide to making the "Ridges"?

i've outlined all steps necessary to do an animated sweep

here's a quick sample of an expression that i have applied to the circle i'm using for the animated sweep

if((frame % 10) < 8) {
nurbsCircle1.scaleX = 5;
nurbsCircle1.scaleY = 5;
nurbsCircle1.scaleZ = 5;
}
if((frame % 10) >= 8) {
nurbsCircle1.scaleX = 6;
nurbsCircle1.scaleY = 6;
nurbsCircle1.scaleZ = 6;
}

with some teaking you can get any shape and detail you'll need

attached a quick sample

[Neil]

krugar - Yea, how do you switch between global and local? In terms of rotating and scaling groups of vertices? (isn't object the same as local?)

Thanks.

[Andre Silva]

Neil,
Try Modify=> Transformation tools=> Move Normal Tool

Hope thats what you are looking for.

[stunndman]

Neil, i think that's again about not being able to rotate the move and scale pivot - so far i have only found out how to rotate the rotate pivot (rotate the local axis)

there's a workaround though - (rotating the object so it's aligned along the xyz and then freeze transform and rotate it back - the move and scale pivot will be properly rotated now) - but that's nothing more than a bad joke

there are numerous threads on this problem - not only at cgtalk - but no verifyable solution so far

like this one - http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11026

[Neil]

Thanks stund! I was really going nutz trying to explain to people what my problem is. I read your thread and i think we are at the same spot. Sorry i didn't see your thread earlier, i check this board quite often, and i'm not sure how i missed it.

I will try to get some pictures of my situation and maybe we'll keep hunting this down.

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