I like to build a lot of sci fi stuff with wires. Coming from Maya, Blender was hard to handle at first but has proved to be amazing. But i’m having a serious problem here (see image).
Maya is able to bridge edge loops to create fast flexible wires. They connect from any angle and maintain volume. Try as I might, Blender does not. I can fiddle with the number of cuts and twist all day, or even try to angle the faces toward each other (as per some online tutorials). If the depth of the two surfaces in an axis are different along the plane i want them to go, the mesh collapses.
Also I’d like to add, Maya’s bridges come with curves so I can tweak the wires/tubes after i’ve made them. Is there some feature/plugin that comes close to this?
I think a lattice is what you’re looking for.I have only used it myself on occasions where i have to model tentacles and making each one unique without turning the mesh into a mess.
Is there any reason you don’t want to use curves to do it that’s what I use you can change it to a mesh after if you like, works great for wires and preserves volume and you can add custom shapes as the bevel as well as the default circle.
You can also use the array modifier together with the curve modifier to create tubes. This works well for when you want to create shapes or patterns on the tubes.
