Bend cylinder in compliance with curve

[WhiteChocobo]

If the cylinder still has the same cylindrical shape to it, try snapping the vertices of the center of the end circles to the endpoints of the curve. If that doesn't work, try snapping the vertices of a span/isoparm on the side of the cylinder to the curve. Hope this helps! ^_^;

[Pete2003]

So you have got a cylinder, and you have got a curve, and you want to shape the cylinder in the shape of the curve right?

Easiest way to do this that i can think of is a motion path, and set the cylinder to be a flow path object as well. This might take a little playing around with to get the cylinder to face the right direction.

Ah, another way: Duplicate your curve, and make the duplicated curve straight (snap all the cvs in the 'y' and 'z' direction for example). Then, make the curve exactly the same size as your cylinder and place it in the middle of your cylinder. Using the Wire Tool, you can make this curve a control curve for the cylinder. Then, create a blendshape using your original curve, and your straight curve. Then, when you slide between your blendshapes your new curve will 'morph' to the position of your original curve :)

Pete.

[Iconoklast]

Or, you could plan ahead, and create your cylinder by extruding it along the curve (nurbs, not poly extrude face thing). Keeping history will allow you to modify the curve, and the cylinder will change accordingly. Is that what you meant?

Oop, nevermind, you stated in your first post you prefer to model the cylinder first then deform it.. well, then ignore me :P

[shserge]

Thank you very much, All!
I really have not undestood in WhiteChocobo's method what would became with intermidiate points of cylinder, because i have undestood it so, that i need to snap only points at the cylinders top and bottom.
I definitely will try the Wire Tool. Thank you, Pete2003!
Iconcast, it may help indeed, it's another helpful solution, but i do polygons cylinder, as i have seen it's for nurbs.
Thank you again, guys!

[Iconoklast]

well, although the technique is for nurbs, you can make it output polygons instead of nurbs, or convert the nurbs to polygons at a later point in time. :thumbsup:

[fanmap81]

cant u just use a bend deformer?

[Pete2003]

cant u just use a bend deformer?

Would depend on how complex the curve is that he/she is trying to emulate.

Iconoklast is right, the simplest way of doing this is to make your curve first, snap a circle to the first CV, and extrude this circle along the curve. You can then just convert the NURBS surface to polygons later (although im sure in your extrude options you can tell Maya to create the cylinder using polygons initially).

The other way is to create your nurbs cylinder, create a 'straight curve' inside the cylinder and use the wire tool. Then by moving the CVs the cylinder moves too.

Of course if you definitely dont want to create your curve from scratch see my initial post :)

Oh, and i think whitechocobo's post i think he/she was talking about simply snapping the cvs of your cylinder to the cvs of the curve. To do this you would need to make sure that 'maintain component spacing' is ticked in your Translate options, or create clusters from each set of control points. Then you would need to snap each group of CVS to its corresponding curve CV. Once this is done you would have to rotate each cv group so that it is 'looking down the curve'. In short, more trouble than its worth :)

[shserge]

Thank you again all, guys!
Pete2003, the explanation is perfect!
fanmap81, actually i can't because the curve is bended not mathematically.
Iconoklast, it's simplier to me to do polygonal model than nurbs, but really thank for advice. I surely will keep it in mind, because i thought yet about doing forms with nurbs.
Currently I tried the wire tool. And it is what i want. I especially like that the section always stay perpendicular to curve independently how i bend the curve. :)

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