Creating tenticles / Pipe...

[plankton]

Hey Guys, just wondering whats the best way to go about creating a tenticle or pipe? is there a way to get a cylinder to follow the path of a spline? if so? how do i go about doing this..

cheers....

[Weetos]

Rail Extrude is what you may need :
http://www.meshweaver.com/frames/tutorials/railextrude.htm

imho this is the best method, but you may also want to give Magic Bevel a try which allows to draw the tentacles/pipes with the mouse

Hope that helps

[plankton]

thanks, that link was good, can use the rail extrude now, but is there a way so that it tapers to get a thick to thin pipe? or do i need to use another tool?

[Weetos]

In this case, use MagicBevel in spline mode (open the numeric panel 'n' so you can see all the options)

This tool requires a little practicing, but once you get how it works, it's really efficient

[plankton]

cheers,

thanks heaps for that.....

[Weetos]

You're welcome :)

[SplineGod]

You can use rail extrude, extrude, etc to create the tentacle, To taper it use the taper tool. :)

[Silkrooster]

The rail extrude tool can use additional rails to determine the taper as well.

[Weetos]

Hey Silk, thank you for this information, I didn't know that ! I just tried and works like a charm - With multiple splines in the background layer, RailExtrude enters in 'Multiple' mode, which activates the tapering

Learning new tips everyday ! :thumbsup:

[Silkrooster]

Your welcome...

[cyatic]

I like using Bezier Bridge. It's free, works great, and is interactive. You can click in the window to add beziers. You can combine shapes. Start with a flat square and extrude to a circle. I love it. There are a lot of very useful plugins at artssphere.com.

Bezier Bridge
http://www.artssphere.com/plugins/bezierbridge.php

Hope this helps.

Cyatic

[art]

thanks cyatic. The extude+ is a bit flaky (never got to finishing it), but it also can do tapering and a few other things that actually may be useful for tentacles.