Proper work flow to make a telephone wire

[ChristliebDela]

I've been trying to make a telephone wire to follow a specific curve but I can't seem to find a way, YouTube and Google doesn't have any useful answer either. All videos show the same process and the result is nothing like the thumbnails they put on, my models have been done for weeks now and I can't move to texturing because I still don't have the telephone wire. I really need help with this one.. Reference image added. And I want the wire to look like that but follow a cure I created. Thanks 

 

[damaggio]

Have you tried with a helix and simulate with cloth.?this can be easily done with marvelous designer but you probably don’t have it.

a simpler way could be with the helix again  and deformers , soft selection or lattices or clusters , get as close as possible to the shape you want then extract a new curve and use the sweep mesh to generate a new final surface. 

[ChristliebDela]

I tried the deformers and the result wasn't really pleasing, the soft selection and moving points too.. I haven't used the lattice in guessing it'll work I guess 

[damaggio]

There's also a create spiral curve in Bonus tools but still a simulation would yield more realistic results.

Also the last spiral on both ends that connect to the phone may be easier to model and then attach to the more uniform cable. If it is still complicated you could model in 3 or 4 curved mesh sections and then connect the pieces , that's probably the second best option.

[mspeer]

Hi!

I did some quick tests here.

Sweep Mesh does not seem to work here, cause with Sweep Mesh you don't have full control over the orientation of the profile and as you need a very high value for Twist, this does not work properly.

There are multiple options how to create this in Maya..

Basically there are 2 different methods:

1) Create the final mesh first and then deform it.

However with extreme stretching you can see that the cable diameter will also change.

2) Create and animate (if needed) only a curve before you create the final mesh based on this curve, so the cable diameter is kept constant, as the deformation happens before the final geometry is created.

If you need it to be dynamic I would recommend to use nHair for the curve that defines or deforms the wire and not make the final mesh dynamic, for performance reasons.