tubes ?
 

http://pixolator.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=36336

How can I create tubes like this in maya easily? Like i model 1 small piece and let i repeat over a curve or something so that i have one object ?

Create a curve, create a circle, put the circle on the end of hte curve, hit surfaces extrude.

I'm not too sure if this is what your after though looking at the link you posted as I couldent see many tubes so to speak on it,

Ya to get the basic shape I would do what gster just said...and just extrude a circle along a curve to get the basic shape. You can then increase the amount of divisions in the perpendicular direction and from there you can create the "ripples" by increasing every third ring of edges or so...then smooth the polygon and it should be close.

The basics of creating a tube or similar surface is to use the EP/CP Curve tool to make the basic shape of your curve that the tube is to take, in the Top/Side/Front views.

Then create a NURBS circle at the required size and extrude it makin sure you select the "along path" option. You will probably have to change settings inthere to get it to look correct. This is the recommened way of dealing with that type of geometry, and is fairly easy to deal with.

Once your 110% happy delete History on it and delete the curve and circle

Ok yes maybe i should make it more clear i need it with the funy ripples :p But I don't understand every thrid ring of edges? You mean I have to manually put extrude each ripply out? There would have to be an easier way out right :p

If I understand you correctly

You wish to create a ribbed effect over the length of the tube?

The process is still the same, except you would have multiple NURBS Cirlces at varied sizes along the length of the tube. This would be a manual process without a good MEL script to do it for you. I don't think theres any easy manual process without using MEL to do the majority of the work.

Haha, ya there might be an easier way to do it, but later that night that I posted it I made that same tube, and it only took me about 20 minutes.

The way I did it was I extruded the circle along the curve path (like R@nSiD says), then I used the split polygon edge tool to make a lot of rings on each side of the extruded cylinder. Then I made the inner rings larger, this creates the ripples. I then smoothed the polygon and acheived the same look.

(When I said every 3rd, I just mean like spreading out the ripples, sorry for the confusion. If you extruded out all the rings then you wouldnt get ripples.)

hmm I see.. i was hoping that I could just modell the first piece with one ripple and then clone that along a curve. To speed things up a bit especially if i wanted to create really long tubes.. but i guess its still hard work :(

Theres no real reason why you could not do an instance duplicate, but then you need to go in an attach all the peices of geometry to create a single tube. This would involve a lot of work, as all the NURBS seems would have to match up, more then likely the NURBS Curve would have to be rebuild to provide the correct level of detail.

I still say multiple NURBS circles and a curve, then lofting is the way to go. But thats just my opinion.

how about a tube that goes gradually from a thick end to a thin end along a curve, with or without ripples?

I've managed to go from thick tube to thin along a path using the birail tools but it only does half of the tube... I then have to duplicate the half and merge it.

When you extrude the circle along the curve to create the tube you can adjust its properties in the attributes editor to make it large on one end down to almost a point on the other end. I forgot what property it is and I am at work atm, so I can get it to ya later if you need it.

Is that what you mean? or do you mean like an inner diameter thickness?

thats the one, cheers esion, I'll have a look into where the property is :)