Tapering along a spline

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gaz954

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Tapering along a spline

Hi I am a new Cheetah3D User, loving the product so far.

I come from blender and some real old school renderers from other platforms

One of the things I miss from blender is the ability to taper a shape that is extruded along a spline.

If your wondering what I mean, imagine a snake like spline with a circle extruded along it. This would look like a garden hose, now imagine another controller object that is also a spline but the distance from its axis determines the thickness of the extruded circle alone the original spline. You could think of examples like putting a golf ball in the water hose or tapering both ends off to make a worm.


So thats it, your basic spline creator with an extra spline to control thickness down the spline.


Thanks,

Greg
 
You can't do this exactly in C3D right now. I don't know if anything like this is planned for 5.x.

If you're willing to deform a tapered object using bones, that's a workaround, but it won't have the kind of precision you may require.

What we'd need is a spline deformer modifier (very useful for other stuff, like animating dolphins).
 
Hi.
I´m pretty sure you won´t expect this as a solution - and it´s by far not what you´re asking for - nevertheless it´s quite funny.

With kindest regards
Frank
 

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Another possible solution is this:

- Use the sweep, a user created spline and a circle to create the hose/tube.
- Then select the sweep.
- Make the object editable using the Object Menu.
- Once this is done, your sweep operation becomes a complete object.
- You can then use any other tools available to complete the ball effect you're going for where you want it.
 
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It looks like tg_jp has solved the problem perfectly -- although I don't think it allows you to animate... Frank's trick is great for the "golf ball in a hose" scenario, but not so much for something like this:

quickmp3-gramophone.jpg


Which I knocked up in about fifteen minutes about ten years ago (using Max R2 or R3). I think you could build the gramaphone using tg_jp's script.
 
10-click-gramophone-funnel

3 clicks for the spline.
1 click for lathe creator and 1 for the sections.
1 double click for making editable
1 for calling bend script
3 clicks for force, axis and point. :p

Cheers
Frank
 

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Not bad, but the original was fully parameterized (i.e. I could change the level of detail, and modify or even animate the curve and taper of the speaker -- you've had to "make editable" destroying a lot of the construction history). Also note that the speaker comes straight out of the tone-arm assembly and then becomes straight for a while at the end -- precise control was needed to achieve this, and you don't get that with the "bend" script (and this would become marked as you dialed up mesh detail).

And finally, your technique won't do the tone-arm at all (look closely) -- it's a sweep controlled by three spines.

Also, I don't think you've included the clicks (or keystrokes) for positioning and parameterizing everything correctly ;-)

BTW: how did you map double-click to "Make Editable"?
 
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podperson said:
BTW: how did you map double-click to "Make Editable"?
Click to expand...
bean counter :tongue:

I´m not naive. I have a gramophone in the bureau next door.
Never thought on animating the funnel mesh - but I could if I wanted.:p

Let things slide.
Frank
 

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fused said:
it's already mapped to the object tag, in this case I pressume the lathe creator tag.
Click to expand...

Another neat feature I never knew about :)

frank beckmann said:
Let things slide.
Click to expand...

Good grief! Pot, kettle.

Anyway, my point is that using a spline to control the curve of a shape and using a bend deformer may produce similar results in the end, but one gives you a lot more control and gets you exactly where you want to go faster (and is easier to tweak, modify, or tweak too). And if I were trying to model a trumpet, say, using a bend deformer would get very old very fast.
 
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