Bend Cylinder Clones Along Spline?

#1

I’m trying to recreate what I see here:

I’ve managed to achieve something similar:



but I’m not quite sure how to get all of the cylinders to bend to the “surface” of the spline.

Essentially what I’m doing is using a formula spline with a sweep NURBS to create a surface which I then clone cylinders to using both “Align Clone” as well as an “Up Vector” of “None”. Obviously, the problem is that the cylinders are still straight and they don’t bend along with the surface. They look too straight and stiff, unlike in the video (where they clearly curve and bend).

Do you have any suggestions for how I could make the cylinders bend nicely along with the curve, similar to the video I posted?

I’ve attached my C4D file for reference.
sample tube.c4d (254.3 KB)

#2

Deform the cloner with a Spline Wrap deformer, and ensure there are enough subdivisions along the height of the cylinder to deform smoothly.

#3

I tried this, but I’m not really able to get the result I’m looking for; it always ends up bending the overall shape of the original formula spline; I tried it with the deformer affecting the cylinder object itself:

as well as affecting the whole clone:

but either way, it just ends up mangling the overall shape. It doesn’t seem to work no matter which axis I choose.

I’m not entirely sure that it’s possible given the shape of my formula spline, but I don’t know for sure. If it is possible, would you be able to modify my sample C4D file I posted so that I can see how to do this properly? Thank you.

#4

67532a18b67f7dabf8dfb547fd941c4ef8df0f41_new.c4d (216.2 KB)

Like this? :slight_smile:

#5

Thank you! I didn’t realize that the initial clones had to be laid out along the axis before applying the deformer to get it to work; now I understand why my method was always failing.