Help! How Can I make Coil Cords

[Turk_WLF]

This is a dual posting because I wasn’t sure which group/section to post it in.

I need to make coil cord for my Two Way Radio project or like old corded phone. However I’m not sure how to go about making the curve section of the coil cord (as if the cord is hanging down). Also I need suggestions on how to attach the cord to the body of the radio & the microphone.

I’m open to any suggestions for either Hexagon or Carrara,

Thanks,
Turk_WLF

[zekaric]

A friend of mine was having similar grief when he was looking to do this. Anyway, I only have Carrara (v4) so this is what I would do.

Method 1: Fake it. Use a tube and tecture it so that it looks like a cord. What I mean is makeing the whole cord one long cylindrical tube and have the texture mimic the cord. This'll do if the cord is never up close.

Method 2: Start with a cylinder witha number of sections along the length. Make links to points around the cylinder diagonally so that what you end up with is a ribbon that spirals down the cylinder. You only really need one full rotation or a 1/4 rotation of the cord and then using symetry and all that duplicate and weld the pieces together. Anyway, with the ribbon you can duplicate and scale in the two of the 3 dimentions to get the inside edge of the cord. Then it's a matter of filling in the space between with faces.

Method 3: Start with a profile of the cord. Extrude it up. Rotate one end by 45 degrees or something. Shift the rotated points horizontally.

Now duplicate the piece, rotate, weld it to the end of the first piece and Repeat until you have the length of cord you as looking for.

Method 4: Make a profile, and a spiral polyline. Loft it. Although this doesn't always make what you really want.



The above will make a straight cord. To connect to existing models you have equal number of choices.

Method 1: all three one object (radio, microphone, cord). Pose the microphone radio and cord in the vertex modeller.

Method 2: Pose the cord in the vertex modeller to get the shape you are looking for. In the assembly room position and scale it to where you want it.

Method 3: Attach a bunch of bones to the straight cord and pose the cord that way. Accurate placement to the radio and mic is up to you though.


Personally I hate Method 3 mainly because I keep managing to really stuff myself with bones (Undo is not your friend... Or it never is for me.) However you need to either make a good number of bones in this case or play around with vertex weights to have the cord bend naturally. For the other cases you will need to manually rotate the points in the vertex modeller which can be just as time consuming.

[Grendel]

Here is a simple cord i made for this thread: http://www.eovia3d.net/showthread.php?t=4997

Also a small screencap walk through.

[LoneGunman]

Is it me, or your geometry is deformed on certan parts?

Is it possible to bend the helix first and then do the pipe thing on the given path?

Forgive me, I model stuff in other sofware (don't have Hexagon) so I do not know...

Also, is this doable in Carrara 5 as well, I have decent model of the phone but never been able to model a cord for it

This is easily done in Hexagon. (If you are looking for the old style rope like cord)

Step one: create a coil with the line tool of the length and num of turns required.

Step two: Add thickness

Step 3: duplicate coil twice rotating each along its long axis so that you get a rope like object. At this point you will see that the dimensions you chose in steps 1 and 2 have a great effect on whether you get a good rope looking object. You may have to re-do a few times to get the best rop

Step 4: (The cool part) Create a line/curve that follows the curve of the desired cord. You have to do this in 2 dimensions You can do the curve for the 3rd dimension later. Use this curve with the "Bend" tool and bend each of the 3 coils in your rope. Repeat in the other dimension.

Here is an example of this technique:

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez...d&ByArtist=Yes

There is a better tutorial on the 3DXtract Hexagon forum. Search user name "sailor_ed" keyword "rope". The thread is named "rope mini tut"

Hope this helps

[Grendel]

Is it me, or your geometry is deformed on certan parts?

OOPS, I did not have enough points on the curve prior to the bend. Use more points to get a more constant influence over the object being bent.