Modeling a cable

Questions & Answers
1

I’m trying to model a semi-rigid cable…like an electrical snake or a very flexible rod. When pushed into the scene, the cable/rod deflects (snakes) around objects but will tend to be straight in the absence of a collision or an applied force. When force is removed, it should immediately return to a straight rod with little or no oscillations.

I’ve tried to create a model using a series of spheres and Configurable Joints, but I cannot find any settings that produce the stiffness needed. And the joints are not behaving how I expect. For example, if I set all six motion and angular motion settings to “fixed,” the series of spheres will still dance around like a chain if impacted.

Suggestions greatly appreciated.

2

Thanks for the suggestion. We tried it and the results were not what we were looking for. The MegaShapes/MegaFiers along with some code got us closer, but the project fell through.

3

I was just going to suggest Megafiers when I saw your comment. Did you try the “bend” modifier? I am imagining you tried to manually figure out intersections and manipulate bend etc based on that?