Animating Cords in Blender

[@mintoure4]

Your content is pure raw learning material for beginners and amateurs. The process of approaching troubleshooting steps is the far more vital step for every blender artists. Be it beginners, amateurs or pros. As an amateur maya user for past 6 years and learning blender since 3 months, i am overwhelmed with blender community.Its vast,creative,selfless, and inspiring at the same time.

[@pellumbsopi2184]

Honestly leaving the troublshooting in is important bcs stuff can always get slightly out of hand on animations and seeing you going through it to find the solution gives us a better understanding on how to find a way around and find the missing piece. Thank you for the great tutorial, you are much appritiated.

[@viktorb2688]

It's really good that you didn't cut out, or sped up most of the trouble shooting parts. This way people can see the troubleshooting steps and also, what is more important in my opinion is, it shows that you always have something that you need to fix, or work around. Many people just cat it out or just do a few "test runs" and than the results are always perfect, than those of us who start doing it, just get discouraged if things start to go sideways. So I appreciate you showing that there's always something that comes up and needs fixing.

[@assaineindustries]

Whenever I watch your tutorial or visit you website I feel very motivated to learn blender, even if it gets difficult a times. I am always stun by your animation and I am like "I won't stop learning until I become as good as this guy".

[@ciaps84]

the troubleshooting part shows that not everything works right away, even if you don't do it for the first time. I'm glad you showed it

[@InfiniteLightAura]

You really don't miss, like ever. Appreciating the all of the knowledge you've put out

[@denieltonrd]

man seriously, learning with you is all fun, I don't even want to skip the paid promotion

[@FirstKamPod]

For everyone whose male part starts from end of the path curve. In Edit Mode on curve search for Switch Direction in F3 menu. Thnx Derek. You are my fav BlenderTuber🤝

[@anneallison6402]

Great take on leaving the troubleshooting, you are amazing Derek!

[@Gawel93]

I work every day animating cables and various plugs. It's actually very hard to do in blender, though you've chosen a fairly simple case anyway. I'd love to see more videos like this :) P.S. If you want an extra challenge, add a rubber bend between the plug and the cable, which will adapt to the cable. Assuming, of course, that the plug will not deform. Have fun :D

[@letsd0good]

best blender tutorials... no competition !

[@assaineindustries]

The troubleshooting was so instrumental in my learning process as I was following the tutorial. I mean, things can always go south. Loved it❤❤

[@MrGreen-ci2mm]

Came here from the smeaf challenge and just watched the tutorial and wanted to let you know you're a good blender artist ! Thnak you

[@lucasvisionvjbitar]

tHANKS for showing that im not the only one that gets knocked out by curves and its orientations, or instances and its parents, or both,!!!! i feel like i'm never learning, lol, but now i see it is unpredictable sometimes, almost everry time. big up from brazil, stay blessed

[@dakshjangra9660]

you are such an honest tutor. Great video. Many thanks!

[@muneebkhaki]

I agree, blender curves are totally unintuitive, blender curves terrify me. That said, its good of you to show the troubleshooting process, most beginner 3d artists see KZbin videos and think that's how others work....hehe. Keep it up Derek!

[@DerekElliott]

Glad you relate!

[@xDaShaanx]

Woah new tutorial from Derek. Yeay. :D

[@CarlosPrGr]

I thought the same :)

[@tamarakepreyeomgbuayakimi.2841]

You are the best of blender kind , keep it up , infact you are now knighted as a blender citizen .

[@FilmSpook]

Infinite Thanks, Derek, this is AMAZING!! Much love and appreciation for you, Brother. 🙏🏾

[@FAETHFLEX]

Thank you for sharing this! Really like your guidance on the journey completing the material in this video!

[@FAETHFLEX]

Great job on the video!!

[@alb2620]

Nice to know I'm not alone on curves. Thanks for including the troubleshooting.

[@melivancolas]

Great tutorial, thanks Derek!

[@xylvnking]

the twist method under the data properties > shape of the nurbs curve will allow you to fix it so it doesn't twist in weird ways, usually

[@xylvnking]

also! if anybody is doing something like this but doesn't need the cord and just needs an object to follow a path without deforming use a constraint! won't work for this here without manually making sure the cord follows it along the curve, since the constraint won't work for the cord as it does need to deform.

[@NIXO3D]

Fantastic tutorial like always 🤙🏾

[@AhmedHussein-xg8zs]

Fantastic , please don't stop tutorial

[@gordonbrinkmann]

When you parent the plug to the plane for instancing, using "Object (Keep Transform)" is absolutely useless in this case. This is meant to keep a possible transformation given to the object being parented to a different object before, so this helps when you switch the parent from one object to another and don't want to lose the previous transformations. Since the plug was not parented to anything before, "Object" and "Object (Keep Transform)" are doing the exact same thing. Your problem here is that your plane is in the world center and the plug is away from the center. The instancing keeps the offset between the origin of the child and the parent object. If you want to instance the plug at the center of the plane, then you either have to manually set them both into the same location or use "Object (Without Inverse)" for parenting, which automatically repositions the plug to the location of the plane.

[@DerekElliott]

Thank you

[@partoftherevengers8719]

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I NEED FOR MY PROJECT OMG THANK YOUU

[@harringtonday5319]

Thank you again Derek Elliott for a great, and the most fun tutorial!! - I found the 'trouble shooting' bits great to follow btw.❤😀🙏

[@cenafilms7074]

Hello from brazil master, very very good tutorial, specialy for the frustrating parts haha, lol, thats show the reality of 3d creation, sometimes it's frustating but with the right experience we call can win any challenge

[@tutebonecco8768]

Amazing derek! Greetings from Argentina!

[@Eggman-zq8xp]

just found another way you can do this by having an empty with the follow path constraint than caking the head of the caple and using the copy transform and rotation contraint and it seems to work pretty well

[@TheCrackingSpark]

I ACTUALLY REALLY NEEDED THIS LIKE RIGHT NOW THANK YOU

[@primitivepatterns]

thanks for always sharing the knowledge

[@tamarakepreyeomgbuayakimi.2841]

Worth it mate, worth it.

[@BootlegEggo]

top tier segue into the ad

[@matts2080]

Abruhhhh I tried for agesss to do something similar for this to make a grappling hook Should be able to apply this method!

[@zahid2254]

Thanks for the amazing tutorial

[@gordonbrinkmann]

Oh, and when the plug and chord are moving in different ditections on the Z: it is simple to explain, if one object's Deformation Axis is set to -Z and the other to Z, then they are naturally moving in opposite directions. It might make people aware of the problem if you don't edit this trial and error out of the video, but it might teach them more if you would say what the cause is - that you chose the wrong axis. Just saying working with curves can be confusing and frustrating is not really a solution and makes people think they always have to try out what works, while in reality it isn't that complicated once you understood the concept of how this works and which axes are used.

[@DerekElliott]

You're very right and I could have been clearer about understanding it and presenting that but my reality is that when you aren't working in a "sterile" environment (i.e fresh scene where all orientations are clear and manageable) then it's always tricky (for me) ... Trial and error with curves is how I get then working most of the time.

[@shycat3d]

Fabulous!! I LIVE YOUR VIDEO SO MUCH! Thanks for the tutorial :D

[@denniswallenta8575]

Isn't it easier to use the follow curve constraint for the head instead of the whole Instance parenting struggle? And for the cord i would use the curve itself with a profile extrusion and start and end mapping function

[@DerekElliott]

This way works great for the head but then matching the start and end mapping gets tricky/less flexible. For a fast solution though what you describe would work fine

[@lukashilfiker6470]

Awesome! Would be interesting if you atach a camera to the plug and do the animation from that perspective :D POV rollercoaster style.

[@DerekElliott]

I thought about that! Lots of people did that in my racing cars tutorial

[@facu_eze_peralta]

Hi Derek, I'm following the tutorial but when I create the instance there is not way that works, I tried so many thing and I can't get it done as it should, When I make the instance and apply the curve mod after parenting the plane and the male plug it's appears all off from the curve center, I dont know what I doing wrong :( need help.

[@sculptureHery]

Hello, I found an easier way to achieve the effect in your video, using geometric nodes to make the object move in the direction tangent to the curve.

[@Gawel93]

Share with us :)

[@andersmm12]

this tutorial saved my marriage

[@princeneville]

I tried tracking the camera to follow the instance. Didn't work. Any tips?

[@janvollgod7221]

why not using a null object and parent this ? it will not bend and just inherit rotation as it follows the curve.

[@andresfabian7002]

this shouldn't be this hard

[@nafiz2755]

Wow....this is impressive. Darn...

[@coleorloff]

Tricky tricky @DerekElliot....maybe you've figured out a smart solution for this little issue: how do you use the plug moving along the curve as the focus point for depth of field considering it's an instance?

[@DerekElliott]

Hmmm haven't tried! Can you not set the DOF to the plane/ instance object? Maybe you could do something with a hook? Or a lot of times with DOF. I will just the animate an empty loosely to line up

[@subomiayo8938]

Hello I'm still having trouble with the curve modifier in the place were you finally fixed the problem why d curve modifier, where did the other duplicate models come from and I still haven't fix the problem

[@subomiayo8938]

Like where did d fake one come from

[@BunnyBunniee]

The silence was so loud lmfao! 💀 I feel seen .

[@andcaru]

Great and thanks a lot for sharing!!!😀

[@WellHiddenTreasure]

ah. where were you 3 days ago? I just finished a cords animation for a project. did it the trial and error way, could have used a tutorial. :)

[@yannickfugah2403]

That Squarespace AD tho haha

[@Dream-tf8pc]

❤love derek

[@TheSocaMann]

do offer courses for beginners ? if so... im very interested

[@DerekElliott]

Soon!

[@Solores17]

For those who don’t see the spread value change ur render engine to cycles!

[@md.khalidhasan759]

hi, can you share your pc configuration for us? I hope many of us want to know that. This will help us to build our own pc for blender.

[@DerekElliott]

I have i9-13900K processor and an RTX 4090 but blender can work on many PCs. This tutorial is pretty basic and would work on a low-powered computer

[@md.khalidhasan759]

@@DerekElliott thanks

[@olehippy13]

I spent all day monkeying with this totorial... never did get it to work right... but, as they say... Back to the drawing board tomorrow. My computer is kinda old.. I just recently upgraded to windows 10.. so I could download Blender 3.6. Now I cant render in cycles.. everything has to be in Eevee. Is that normal ? Any way, I'm still enjoying monkeying around. Thanks Derek, great totorial. keep smilin. --- former Medic in Vietnam

[@pokharacreator]

thank you🥰🥰🥰🥰

[@jlcjlc1719]

Thank you for this video but how we can make PARACORD MATERIAL mor than one color like Cinma 4D thanx please make a video tutorial

[@mustafabol1706]

Do these files exist on your Patreon account? Thank you

[@DerekElliott]

Yes this should be on there

[@mustafabol1706]

I can't found 😅😅@@DerekElliott

[@DerekElliott]

@@mustafabol1706 sorry I might have forgotten to add it. I will go in and put it in there now

[@teeheeleelee]

Great tutorial that feels unexpectedly… sensual?? For a blender tute anyway 😂

[@DerekElliott]

It's a labor of love

[@oskarcve]

Muchas gracias!

[@cocboss3329]

Wonderful

[@coughcough5839]

the end gives bob ross ngl

[@GustavoHenrique-ub8ts]

Instant Like!!!

[@pressed0n615]

I'm not trying to hate, but from my experience this could be much simpler with geometry nodes right?

[@worldsbrother9704]

If you can please make robot tutorial

[@sadalitharukshiya5154]

Please make robot tutorial

[@Ur_johnwick]

👌👌👌

[@peshawaamin3083]

❤❤

[@gamotronix_sakib6548]

i am not complaining. thank you for the video but i can't keep up. i am struggling you are way to fast and did not explained through

[@diegolagar]

Why are you using the default cube? You have broken the first rule of blender... I think i will unsuscribe from your channel. 😂😂😂. Nice tutorial, btw. ❤

[@Bird-pl5hz]

If you can please make robot tutorial