bending

[daanbanaan]

is there any way to create a bend that is based on degrees?,,,like in Max if i want a 90 degree bend...i type in 90...i can use nonlinear bend but i cant seem to get a perfect 90 or 45 degree bend.

any solutions?

-c

[gmask]

use joints..

[daanbanaan]

yeah....i know...:-/

but what a pain to make a simple bend...setting up weights just to make a 90 degree peice of pipe.

[gmask]

Maybe a lattive deformer would be easier?

[murdok]

Ya I completely agree. Maya is brilliant, but when it comes to such simple things as extruding text, or bending cylinders (or any object for that matter)....it becomes tedious.
I'm sure Maya users can say 'No problem...just write a script for that....' Ya well you know what....I shouldn't have to....Max has a button called 'bend'....EVERY 3d app should have that button.

agreed?

www.crowboy.com/reed3d

[jtk77]

I havn't read the whole thread...but ?
Nonlineared bend deformer ? Works fine for me...also you have bons you can bend with, you can also bend with a blend shape. Bend with a lattice ...
Really no sure what you need to get done, but there are about 4 different easy ways to bend an object.
Even a tool that is called a bend.
AS far as text extrutions,
Extrude face , Bevel , Bevel Plus, and an option to use if you type the font yourself in the text tool.
All these things are easy.

[daanbanaan]

bend works fine unless you want a perfect precision 90 degree bend. go ahead and try,it takes all day to make one..

as far as using bones...that works well, but is an awfull lot of work just to get a simple bend.

i challenge you...see how long it takes to get a smooth perfect 90 degree bend in maya...not just a sharp 90, but a smooth arching one....like a nice arching pipe.

then use the bend deformer in max.

then compare times...

i love maya...but sometimes simplicity is better.

---C

[campbell]

probably a quick ear pick longer than it takes in max!

1. curvature is in radians ...
   where:
   45 degrees ~= 0.7853981633974483 radians,
   90 degrees ~= 1.5707963267948965 radians.

2. default constructn of the deformer is to bend around the middle of the object, in both directions, not just one (what you want): so flip lower or upper bounds to zero, and move the deformer widget/gizmo to where you want to start bending, scale it to change depth of the bend (this plays off w bound limits though, so be careful) ... if you just want to bend the whole piece, from base to tip, 0 one bound, pump the other, snap to base, and set curvature to 45 deg, or, keep other bound at 1, curv at 90 and double the widget's scale.

slightly different input/defaults, is all.

[joojaa]

Cambell yeah using maya is rocket science isnt it!

Yes the fundamental difference in max and maya is that in maya you actyualy need to watch whats going on! so if theres 10 parameters instead of 1 you expect read what they are there for... they usuarey are very usefull at times.

[daanbanaan]

hehe...some of us dont want to be rocket scientists...we only want to be dumb artist..

holy crap!...now how was i supposed to figure out that radian nonsence!....thanks though...will help alot.

---C

[joojaa]

by asking maya to explain how bend works... you can find it in the help...

[campbell]

not rocket science, just rock science : cludge until you get what you expect.

you wont find in the manual that curvature is in radians (where i looked first). i just proded the deformer until the results approximated what was desired, looked at the delivering vlaue(s), and thought curvature looked like a rather suspect cousin of pi (which seemed fitting given the context), plugged the value into a radian-degree converter (umm: http://xperiencetheoutdoors.com/geocache/geotools2a.html ), and there it was.

you know there is a basis to the various paramaters, they arent willynilly, just sometimes they arent soo self-evident (yeah, a|w should make for an easier ride).

[joojaa]

Actualy it is stated in atlest maya 4 node reference dont know about newer versions tough... (or maybe someone has altered my copy of the manual by including their own comment??? se we use the 4.0 node reference side by side with the new one bacuase we have own comments on it!)

Anyway maya incldes radian to angles conversion so plucking on atrib with this in between doesent seem to big of a problem...

only thing is that aw could be a bit more carefull about consistency thats true... But i guess its because there are just so many nodes.

And the internal unit offcourse is radians (for ovious computational reasons)... so its a sure fire bet for anything angular.

[campbell]

annonated docs, mmm nice! (right there, not in some dislocated note file!).

whilst in the 4.5 docs there is no explict mention that the units are radians, i guess you just infer they are because it isnt a doubleAngle, the internals are radians, and the default isnt marked as degrees? makes sense. though, it does mean you have to have idea what a parameter is doing, otherwise its just an undefined dataType (-> where the description should, then, fill you in!).

[joojaa]

Yes i suggest you put some annotate tag around this sice you may want to eventualy parse them forward! XSLT is wonderfull at such things!

[campbell]

will definitely keep it in mind, cheers.