Blender Cables

My current project Quadrilateral Cowboy has a fair amount of dangly cables.

danglycable

Here’s how I make them in Blender (I use version 2.49b):

  1. Create a cylinder.

    1. Vertices and Depth determine how detailed the cable will be.

    2. Deactivate: Cap Ends

  2. Rotate the cylinder to run along the X axis (the red line).

  3. Apply scale and rotation to the cylinder:

    1. Press: ctrl+a

    2. Select: Scale and Rotation to ObData

  4. Create a bezier curve.

    1. The bezier curve and the cylinder should both be at the same origin. bezier

  5. Activate 3D on the bezier curve:

    1. Open the Editing panel (press F9).

    2. In the Curve and Surface area, click the button labeled 3D.

  6. Add a modifer to the cylinder: Array

    1. Change Fixed Count to Fit to Curve Length

    2. In ob, type your bezier curve’s name. (default: Curve)

  7. Add modifer to cylinder: Curve

    1. In ob, type in your bezier curve’s name. (default: Curve)

  8. Go nuts with the bezier curve:

    1. Select the last node on the bezier curve.

    2. Extrude the node. (press: e) blender

  9. Optional: bake the curve:

    1. Select the cylinder.

    2. Press: alt+c

    3. Select Delete Original