Creating different cable designs in Blender - Cablerator

How to create cables quickly, with comments on how to ensure they 3D print correctly, including:
- Cables with connection points
- Ribbed cables
- Multicables
- Bound cables
00:00 Intro
01:10 Cablerator basics
03:34 Adding connection points
06:43 Creating Ribbed cables
11:21 Important points for 3D printing cables
14:25 Creating multi-cables
21:42 Bound cables
A video on my settings - • Settings and Add-ons f...
A video on using radial arrays - • Radial Arrays in Blender
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[@richardokeeffe8375]

Never skip cable day! Great stuff

[@ArtisansofVaul]

The next one on cablerators added functions is going to blow people's minds I swear. It's all newer stuff I hadnt even seen and it's bloody amazing. I've been playing this evening (I didnt even know about it until the weekend when I did an update and I've been swearing with excitement.

[@jmelwak3]

glad you mention 3d printing in your videos! thats awesome you take those steps so it prints properly great videos!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁 Glad it's helping you and other people to include it. It was something I always found missing from tutorials (hence the channel)

[@mrhollywood5285]

First ......... I was glad to discover your channel. Second your coverage of addons are A+++ Cheers MR H

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks again Mr Hollywood. Glad you're enjoying the content. I try to make my videos as clear and informative as possible focusing on what I would want to know about a technique or addon, I'm always glad that's the sort of thing others want to know about as well 😁👍🏻

[@Jeffzip]

Awesome tutorial! Can't wait for the next!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks man. Next one on Friday will continue to look at Cablerator, but this time some of the more funky stuff it can do.

[@TheFrostysky]

Thank you very much for the tutorial. I think I will have to look at buying Cablerator and stop making ribbed cables by hand (arrays and paths - I agree absolute insanity).

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Yeah, having done it previously when I tried cablerator it was such a difference in the convenience/ease. It just doesn't go wrong.

[@HuntsForge]

Thanks dude! Good to see a full break down of usefull add-on. May have to go treat myself!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

No problem. We'll worth the cash in my mind. If you watch my second video there's even more to Cablerator that I havent seen covered on many videos and it totally blew my mind.

[@redcossack3943]

Great time saver, thanks for the video explaining it clearly.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks a lot 😁👍🏻

[@TorchOnTarget]

This channel is really awesome, thanks for the videos! I have been recently transitioning into learning how to putter around blender to modify and make my own models after resin printing for so long. Look forward to using your vids!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks a lot. Really good to hear they are being useful and designing or modifying designs is really fun to do. I think you'll really like the videos that are coming next week 😉

[@helziephoton]

Awesome videos they all so informative thank you so much ❤🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@ArtisansofVaul]

😁 Thanks so much

[@chrisjohn6901]

Of course I immediately bought it. Amazing! Not only have I made great cables, I've also been able to make braces for my gargant (using rectangular segments) Also able to use it to rig up curved arrays to do neat rivets along curved panels.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Nice! Great use of it. If you are making orky things the video tomorrow looking at the other Cabelrator functions should be really good!

[@jakemarcus9999]

$14 is absolutely nothing. I bought this plugin and it's great. I also just wanted to support the developer.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I couldn't agree more. Its been worth so much more than that on the time saved for me. And as you say supporting the developers is so important, people creating addons like it is what makes Blender such a great piece of software

[@vittorioconti3665]

got yourself a new sub with this one!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Cheers 😁👍

[@vittorioconti3665]

@@ArtisansofVaul keep up the good work

[@bruceee2660]

wow the flower method blow my brain...

[@ArtisansofVaul]

🤣 As with many things Blender you can do such great stuff if you know the tricks 😉

[@Riprazor]

Great video. Addon is a steal at $15.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks and totally agree!

[@neil1375]

The UI could do with improving, but the Addon is useful. Maybe newer versions could use the mouse scroll for arraying etc?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I cant dissagree, I would prefer that as well. A lot of add ons use the movement of the mouse instead of scrolling the wheel so maybe there is a reason for it (possibly access to it as part of addon programing or something that the general community prefer). The creator is a REALLY nice guy and has been very responsive so it might be worth messaging him

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

To move a point to the nearest object face center, you just hold down the Ctrl key after hitting the move point(D) and hover over the object face you desire it to be centered on.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Damn! Great tip man, thanks SO much!

[@humansrants1694]

Use Sanctus Addon if you want to add procedural displacement shader to it to add live and ground wire around it. Thanks for the tutorial.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I dont notrmally worry too much about shading as I don't render much but it really is something I should get into!

[@humansrants1694]

@@ArtisansofVaul With his shaders their isn't much work, his metal ones auto find the edges and scrape the paint off, less work to do in Quixel Mixer.

[@MartinJamesLittle]

A major feature you didn't cover is the ability to draw pipes onto surfaces. Coupled with your previous video on fitting pipes around objects, this would allow stupidly easy freeform wires on walls.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

You're totally right Martin. Thats going to be in this Friday's videos. And thats not the half of it. They have added so much to Cablerator since I last updated it that it blow my mind over the weekend playing with all the new things it can do. I will try to cover as many as I can on Friday's video because some of them are absolutely fantastic.

[@mind_of_a_darkhorse]

After you go to add segment and then array and then array count, just scroll the mouse wheel to add more segments, instead of moving the mouse.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I might be wrong but I think that's come with a later update as it didn't used to work for me at the time but does now.... But great tip all the same.

[@jsi6930]

a bit late, but c+scroll wheel works for the segments for armored cable

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh nice! Thanks for that.

[@greencats2757]

Just something I found is that for making the multi cable you can make the outline shape than convert it into a curve and when you make a cable while having a curve selected it uses the curve as the cables shape automatically

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Oh cool. I'll have a look at that as that would be handy

[@mixchief]

I can't make up my mind between Cablerator and Curve Basher.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I've never used curve basher to be able to compare, sorry. I can just say that cablerator is awesome!

[@MartinJamesLittle]

Wow, this might be my first addon I pay money for. Wondering though; this clearly uses curves under the hood, can the cablerator actions be performed on a normal curve, our does the base curve need to be created by the addon?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thats a great question and one I havent explored to be honest. It can do some great stuff combining things together so it might be able to do it from already existing curves. Friday's video is going to look at some of the additional other things you can do with Cablerator so I'll have a look at this as well to be able to answer you without guessing.👍

[@MartinJamesLittle]

@@ArtisansofVaul Just had a tiny play with it and it sortta worked, but did flattened the mesh I used as a segment. Maybe worth looking at as I'm still a bit baffled with how arrays on curves work at the best of times. I can never really figure out where the origin of each needs to be in relation with the other and normally end up creating both at the origin and then moving the completed pipe after all the modifiers are applied.

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@MartinJamesLittle Ah, if you made it that way I can see it having that effect. In that case I imagine if you made it through bevelling the line (see the video I did on making pipes) it should work fine. The issue you mentioned on origin positioning is one of the main reasons this add on is great.

[@iNeeDzv2]

Very useful! I have a question, what do you think of curve basher?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

Thanks. I haven't tried Curve Basher. I'll have to check it out, is it on Blender Market?

[@iNeeDzv2]

@@ArtisansofVaul Yes!

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@iNeeDzv2 Ouch... I just saw the price. Looks like Cablerator does the same things and more for $5 cheaper. I may stick with that for now.

[@iNeeDzv2]

@@ArtisansofVaul Yeah probably Cablerator is better, maybe the only thing is that curve basher comes with more customized profiles and cable types, in cablerator you have to build your own manually (pretty easy)

[@Robert-ln1cx]

have you tried adding a ribbed cable with the "add or edit segment" function to a cable you have drawn (rather than created)? I can't get mine to behave even after playing with the created modifiers. With a created cable, its a dream, with a drawn cable, apparent nightmare! 😅

[@ArtisansofVaul]

That's really interesting. I can't say that I have as normally I am using the created cable. Out of curiosity was the surface you were drawing the cable onto smooth and were you drawing it with a tablet or mouse?

[@Robert-ln1cx]

@@ArtisansofVaul I was drawing it with a mouse over a series of cubes to test it out (just got the add-on). I seem to have "fixed it" this morning, it's quite possible I'd got my origin away from the centre of mass of the cable segment... 😅I blame the lateness of the hour! what was odd was the same segment worked fine on a created cable, lol I'll explore it more

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@Robert-ln1cx Thanks for the reply, thats really interesting. When it worked the second time had you redrawn the cable? Im wondering if the mouse being shakey affected the line?

[@Robert-ln1cx]

@@ArtisansofVaul I used the same line as before, it was me messing up; I copied the segment to be added but it was still parented to something else so went weird on me. The more I play with it the better cablerator gets. I want to put cables on everything now 😂

[@elzar8763]

14$ for simple curves , seriously?

[@ArtisansofVaul]

I mean each to their own but the amount of time this has saved me over the last year has made it well worth it. I agree it's not hard to go but it does take time. Also if you look at my second video on this some of the functionality saved even more (remember this video is just the basic functions of it)

[@elzar8763]

@@ArtisansofVaul this question for sellers , I watched the video

[@ArtisansofVaul]

@@elzar8763 I mean I dont know anything about designing addons to know the work that went into it to comment. But I will say I like it.