SeanOSkea Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 (edited) Hello all: I'm trying to make a corrugated pipe like the ABS landscaping drain pipe you see everywhere. I'd like it to be able to curve along a NURBS path so the pipe can bend in multiple directions at once. I messed around with the Chain extrude (does anybody use that tool?) and was able to make it work along straight lengths but despite having Bezier options in the mode bar, it only seems to make straight runs with angular bends. The best I could come up with was modeling one segment and then using a NURBS as a path for a "Duplicate along a path" that seemed to work ok but it made dozens of replications of the shape to do it. Is there a better way? Thanks Sean Edited April 28, 2015 by SeanOSkea Quote Link to comment
mike m oz Posted April 28, 2015 Share Posted April 28, 2015 This is best done with an Image texture and Renderworks. See attached file which has a shelled pipe with an image texture mapped to its surfaces. Quote Link to comment
SeanOSkea Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 Thanks Mike I am looking for an actual modeling solution. I could get a good effect with displacement maps (although it takes forever to render) but I'm trying to find an actual geometry method. Thanks for the suggestion Sean Quote Link to comment
Benson Shaw Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 (edited) Is the segment model with DAP not working? And how detailed does it need to be? Maybe skip the shell and just use a surface? For DAP, most efficient segment shape is probably a Revolve with Rail made into a symbol. Sweeps and solid subtractions will have way more vertices and slow down redraws,, even when made into symbols. Texture on an extrusion, as Mike suggests, should be very efficient, too. EAP will be lower overhead if it is polygon (12 sides?) rather than circle. -B Edited April 29, 2015 by Benson Shaw Quote Link to comment
AlanW Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 (edited) This is nicely done. How did you put the pieces together in your drawing? For a Noob like me what is DAP? Ah , Duplicate along path, Great, thanks for showing that, can do it now thanks to you. You da MAN Edited April 29, 2015 by Alan Woodwell Quote Link to comment
Kevin McAllister Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Nice explaination as always Benson! KM Quote Link to comment
SeanOSkea Posted April 30, 2015 Author Share Posted April 30, 2015 No it worked, as shown in the image I attached. The only difference is I extruded two circles and fileted the edges rather than sweeping the shape. That's why mine is solid inside. So no, it's not that I didn't get results, I just wondered if there was a more poly-efficient way to do it as creating potentially hundreds of copies of the segment seemed intensive. Thanks for your post. Got an interesting conversation on the forums if nothing else. --Sean Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.