Technique Idea: Creating a Pipe
 

Hi, this technique was first proposed by Undseth in the old "How i Did it forum". But seeing as that's gone now and it's a great technique I will post it again here. Once again this was posted first by Undseth not me!

First create a curve that has the profile that you want your pipe/tube to be.

Then create a nurbs circle that has the radius that your pipe is to be. (Both of these can be created anywhere in the scene)

Now select the circle , then select the curve, then go to surfaces>>extrude>>options.

Select the options shown below and hit extrude. You should have a lovely little pipe that you can modify by modifying the original curve (as see in the pic attached.

Hope this technique is useful to you guys. Post questions about it in this thread and I'll try to help you out.

:)

Alan

Thanks for that tip!!!

Excellent tip Pure_Morning ;)

I cant stress it enough that it was originally undseth's idea!! you should send him thanks too :)

I hope it's useful I know it was to me

Where is undseth anyway? He's not been around lately...

he hasnt posted since 26-03-2003 07:22 PM 26-03-2003 07:22 PM . Wow that's almost a month!

hop ehe's ok. is anyone on MSN or AOL etc with him?

Hi pure morning.
Is there a way you make the same you explained above but using a nurbs square instead of circle? When I tried, the result was two parallel planes connected with another plane in the middle and not the the "tube effect".

Thx.

Mário.

he made a post a while back that he'll stop posting on the forums for some time... maybe (hopefully) he'll come back and visit us!

-Emo

That wont work because a nurbs square consists of four nurbs curves that are not connected at all. You could use a nurbs circle and then flatten out the corners by moving the control points to get a square like shape. Or use the EP/CV curve tool to draw out a nurbs square shape (Use three or so cv points close together to get a sharp corner)

Alan

Thx...I'll try that.

Mário.

Great. I needed this.

I needed to close the tubes like it was a solid piece. Somebody know if there's a way to do this?

Thx.

Mário.

you can use nurbs "make planar" on the isoparm at the end you want to close and that should cap them for you.

Although truth to be told planar surfaces can become a hassle in the future.

You could make a cap yourself by pulling the last two rows of CVs together into one.