So… I’m a noob, I know. I did a few searches on the forums here and didn’t come across anything… maybe I just missed it.
I’m wondering how I could animate a cable, or a cord in blender? For example a steel braided cable, or an interlinked metal water hose?
I’ve seen softbodies mentioned, but I’ve never used them.
Any insight into how to “animate” cables would help me out a lot… I’m not really sure how to go about it (as with a lot of other blender topics).
Thanks
austen:ba:
I could suggest making a Bezier Circle, name it “cable” or something. Move that to Layer 2 ( press M then 2 )
Then create a Bezier Curve and in the edit options under BevOP: enter in “cable” and it will make a nice smooth cable. You can divide the curve into as many points as you like.
Like the tutorial above shows, you’ll need to make hooks for each point. Just select a point, press Ctrl+H to make the hook, then Ctrl + P to parent the vertex point to the hook.
What is the cable doing?
Softbodies on curves are good - if the cable is being held anywhere (IE at one end or both ends), then softbody all but the end verticies.
If it’s a short cable between two objects, you may do better to just attatch the end vertices to each object, and not bother with softbody.
You might want to sceliton-animate the cable.
Here is one way. Move the empties at each end of the cable and it will move.
FlexHose_Dynamic.blend (398 KB)
Thank you all for your help! I’ve been experimenting with a few different ways to do this, but i’m still having problems. (big surprise)
Atom - Your solution is exactly what i need, but can you explain how you did it? I’m a noob and trying to reverse engineer your blend only got me more confused. What are all the hooks, how do you set them up? I looked at the other tutorial that was linked but it was too vague and didn’t provide too much help.
Edit: I’ve got a better idea of how it’s working, another question, how can I apply some subtle gravity to the hose now?
Thank you,
austen
I’m uploading an example so everyone can hopefully figure out what i’m talking about. I used atom’s example to start, and added another mesh object to it, my question now is how to parent the very end of the curve to the object i’ve added… it’s supposed to be a handheld showerhead… I didn’t think it was going to be this hard to animate.
I want to be able to move the head around, and have the cable be precisely attached to the end of it, without the end of the cable moving around, etc… maybe there’s a way to make a hook on the curve to another object??
Thanks for any help you can give.
austen
FlexHose_Dynamic.blend (259 KB)