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View Full Version : Creating a tube while controlling the radius of it

theboykidney
09-29-2006, 06:24 PM
This is tough to describe... try and stick with it - the pic should help...

I need to extrude a circle along a curve to create a tube (or the appearence of, so translating a tube along a curve will also do
This needs to be animation, ie. keyable parameters, so a loft won't do.
I also need control over the thickness of the tube as its being created, ie. as the pipe is 'growing' i need to be able to key the thickness at that point (a loft would be good here if it was keyable as i could animate the radi of the circles which would change the radius of the tube).
If I key the radius of the circle as its being extruded, it changes the radius of the whole mesh - I need the mesh to maintain its radius at it point of creation.

It's proving a tough nut to crack, lattices get pretty messy, especially when you mix them with curve deforms.

The pic below shows what i would like as the end result, but growing into that position...

http://www.seedanimation.com/cgtalk/tube.jpg

Would really appreciate your thoughts on this one.

CHeers, TBK
kimaldis
09-30-2006, 10:01 AM
try animating your circle along your curve, scaling it as you need then use dup from animation to create a bunch of curves to loft.

Use ghosting to visualise the shape of the tube at the animation stage.
AnIm
09-30-2006, 01:48 PM
animate circle extrusion along axis
deform its shape through lattice
and apply deform by curve

look here for a little video
http://rapidshare.de/files/34982848/ExtrudeTube.avi.html
theboykidney
10-01-2006, 03:38 PM
Kim - no way to key a loft :sad:

AnIm - cheers for the vid, had tried something similar, but in the wrong order
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