Deform by Curve "on the fly"?

[Kerro Perro]

Hey guys,

i've been trying this off and on for a while and never quite get my head around it: i would like to be able to use a curve deform "on the fly" during modeling.
It would be great to extract a curve from an edge on the oblect you're working on (1) then freeze it (2) and use it tweak the profile of the objects easily...
Unfortuneatly what always happens is it shoots off (3) even if they both have their centers at world axis (4)...

ex.jpg

Now the closest i can get is draw similar curve - because the edge-extracted curve always causes problems - send the object back to world center by zeroing out all the translation and the deform by curve > translate along axis. But that really doesn't do the job i want it to.

Btw i tried out this: http://monophyl.com/?p=1245 wich i seem to remember working but does nothing now (in fact it even seems to render the object incapable of deforming at all forcing me to rebuild it) perhaps a version issue. But i also seem to remember it did not quite do the "on the fly" deforming either..

So is this a pipe dream? ;)

[rray]

There's the deform by spine too which could be closer to what you mean to do. I couldnt tell what "deform by curve" actually does right now, I think it could be closer to a extrude "post process".

Btw for editing the profile I use the proportional transfrom tool heavily (which isn't even mapped to a hotkey in the default layout).

[Bullit]

Maybe try this plugin - the freeware version - http://maxfoxlab.ru/mx_curvedeform.html




There is also the Pro version which is paid. More videos at link.

[Kerro Perro]

@ Rray: well the proportional transform tool really doesn't work well on things like cylinders, it sorta crunches them up. But deform by spine actually does pretty much what i was describing - i never really tried because i thought it needed some kind null rigged type spine as deformer Thanks!

@ Bullit: that plugin seems good but i can't get any of the versions to work, they're all greyed out. And i can't find how much a license would cost, though i'm not sure i'd want to buy it anyway...

[Bullit]

Did you see the video to know how to use it?

[Kerro Perro]

Yeah but i can't even select it in the drop-down in SI, it's there but it's all greyed out/unclickable...

Edit: this might make it clearer ;) :

Capture.PNG

[Bullit]

Try to uninstall the curve deform pro, install only the curve deform beta(not pro) in a workgroup. And don't forget to reboot soft.

[Kerro Perro]

Hi Bulit, i'm sorry i forgot about this thread - i tried to get MX_curvedeform working, i got the addon working as such but every time i aplly it causes a crash...

I'm gonna email the developer...

EDIT: christ it crashes as a user install when you try to use it - when you install it as a workgroup add-on it causes a consistent crash every time you start Softimage...

[Kerro Perro]

Update: just got an email back from the developer - the plugin was made for 2012 and there are possible problems with 2013 due to SDK changes. Unfortunately he won't be able to update till next spring.