topic Re: Spiral curves in Maya Forum

Spiral curves

Parmenides — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 01:29:35 GMT

I am trying to create a tube of metal conduit. I would assume that I would just create a spiral and extrude a profile along it and then take the tube and deform it with CurveWarp. But what is up with the spiral creation? The only spiral I could find is under Bonus Tools and it's attributes seem to be locked. So once you make the spiral you can't edit it. ??

If I create a Helix, I can edit the Coils, Height, Width, etc. but I can only use a polygon for the extruded shape. Maybe there is another way to do this that I am not seeing. Why is the spiral so limited? Thanks to anyone that can point me in the right direction. -Derryl

Re: Spiral curves

john.paul.giancarlo — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 12:53:56 GMT

could you explain a bit further what you want to do ? the helix would create a polygon but you could convert that into a nurb or even extract just a curve from it by selecting a loop and extracting the curve from it !

I am not sure if I am following correctly !

Re: Spiral curves

Parmenides — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 18:36:35 GMT

Thanks John, if you look at the image you will see that the conduit is basically an 's' shape turned and hooked on itself. I realize I can extract a curve from the helix as I have done that in the past. The problem is that I can't edit it afterwards (rotations, height, radius, etc.) Plus the spiral under the bonus tools works just as quick but also loses the ability to edit the channels. I need to be able to edit the parameters after creating it. Thanks.

Re: Spiral curves

john.paul.giancarlo — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 19:08:54 GMT

maybe you could use mash to achieve that result and still have control over the curve, the workflow in mash is procedural !

have a look at this video maybe it will be useful

Re: Spiral curves

sean.heasley — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 17:53:31 GMT

Hi @Parmenides!

Just to add to this, I recently found this script that is really fast at making the exact type of pipe you want to make :).

Re: Spiral curves

Parmenides — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:03:26 GMT

Thanks Sean, that look awesome. Unfortunately though, Quickpipe and other awesome scripts such as Mesh Blend are PC only.

Re: Spiral curves

sean.heasley — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:04:58 GMT

True but at the moment he's working on Mac support so fingers crossed 😉

Re: Spiral curves

mspeer — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 18:16:55 GMT

Hi!

Most of the features of Quickpipe are built in features of Maya.

With Nurbs and Curves you should be able to create "nearly" any type of spiral / tube.