How do I make a spring or coil?

[VWTornado]

I was wondering how to make a spring or coil. Like the springs in your cars suspension. Also I was wondering how to make a Tornado like object... http://www.spinmediainc.com/ Check that link out...I designed the logo and did the simple animation there...but I'm wondering how I could have make the Tornado more uniform in its coiling with smooth curves around and up?

Thanks for any help.

[CoryC]

To build a coil or spring:

1 - put a circle centered on y and z and however far off the center you need the coil.

2 - Use Lathe, in the number panel select Activate and then set the offset to the amount of rise you want the coil to have.

3 - Clone the section however many times you need. Merge the points.

You could do both 2 and 3 in Lathe. Just multiply the sides by the total rotations and set the end angle at 360 x total rotations. Set the offset to the total height of the coal.

If you need to animate the springs, do one fully extended and another (with an identical number of polys) compressed. Use morphing to morph one to the other.

[dddMan]

Like the springs in your cars suspension

You can use endomorphs for animation ... it's all explained here:

http://home.no.net/tbj69/Gallery/T03.htm ... build a spring...

http://home.no.net/tbj69/Gallery/T04.htm ... animate the shock absorber...

[riki]

For the tornado type spiral shape use the Seashell Tool

see: http://www.suture.net/tutorials/modeling/page03.htm

[VWTornado]

riki, thanks for that link...do you know if they go into more detail on any of those things they mention? Like on the 3rd page it shows a spring, and it says they used the Lathe tool, but didn't really go into any detail on how they did it...I'm guessing they Lathed a circle to make that spring, but you have to figure that out on your own...and it does that brief description on all the different tools it shows. But still a great thing to at least give you ideas on how to do things.

and thanks to the others for links, they will be most helpful in furthering my 3D skills. :)

[riki]

It's pretty simple just flip and then lathe a disk, but set the end angle past 360 degrees (ie maybe 3600 degrees) and add an offset value so that the new geometry spirals outwards, plus increase the segments so that it's smooth. Use the Numeric panel to help. Make sure the start angle is set to 0 degrees and lock it in to the X. Y, or Z axis. Hope this helps.

My suggestion is to mess about with it for awhile, it's a funny tool, and it may not work how you think. But eventually you'll get the hang of it.

[jb_gfx]

Maybe you want to take a look at my old lscript RT-Splinerols, you can get it here:

http://www.geocities.com/jb_gfx/index.html