Simulate Complex Cables in Blender EASY! | FREE .blend file

How to simulate dynamic cables for an animation? How to simulate collisions for dynamic cables? And how to simulate dynamics and collisions with complex or high poly cables or hoses?
That's what we are going to see in this tutorial.
Download the FREE .blend file here: gum.co/cabless...
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[@cestunchopin4928]

WoW! How come some people explain things easily like yourself that make total sense and others makes it really hard to understand. Thanks a million.

[@MikeyDoland]

By the way, if you're not seeing the "add single vert" option, you need to enable the add on "extra objects" in preferences. Press F4 -> P and add it in there. You'll see the same menu he has at 1:06.

[@JC-sd3ks]

oh my god thankyou so much this has been killing me for about a week now!

[@MikeyDoland]

@@JC-sd3ks Awesome, glad to help!

[@metaltrooper8947]

DO you know how to texture this? cus I can't get the UV's since I am using the Skin modifier and I can't apply it since it will mess up the animation.

[@nirmalgurung4447]

Thanks

[@thcoolatos]

Thank you. This literally saved my career, I’ve been banging my head against this for hours! I totally forgot about mesh Deform modifier

[@bhumijsharma3884]

if you cannot create a single vertice, duplicate a default cube or any mesh and delete all vertices and press Cntrl + RMB ( right mouse button) But there is a better way. 1. Go to Edit -> Preferences->Add ons-> Search "Extra Objects" 2. Add Mesh - Extra Objects. Et voila! Btw Love the videos, Victor!😘 Keep them coming!! It was the only one in a while I was able to implement quickly which seemed complex and challenging at first

[@roozbehebadi6661]

I really love how you started to explain it in it's SIMPLEST matter, until make it more complex... it made the tutorial totally understandable! thanks a lot \m/

[@DarkShroom]

this example as a file is a lifesaver thanks, just a working example you know you're good

[@thevoid6756]

So much better than the stupid 90 second tutorials with a million cuts. Thank you!

[@markzaikov456]

Thank you for mentioning about the order of the Modifiers, I've seen a lot of people struggle the same because they don't address it

[@cgpractice1522]

i'm familiar with the technique, but never saw it explained this clearly, "chapeau" my friend and i sub :)

[@victorvdr9]

thank you so much :)

[@itsrvvkie]

coming back to this tutorial every once in a while to remember myself how to do this cool stuff. Thanks a lot for sharing!

[@cheatcodes1977]

One of the best tutorials I’ve seen on Blender. Really well done! Thank you for the knowledge!

[@ustoopia]

Of all the cable/cloth animation video's on youtube, this is definately one of the better ones, or perhps even the best one. Thanks!!

[@sottozen]

Great !!!! Thanks for this

[@victorvdr9]

Thanks for watching :)

[@khasmaktruth]

You friggin rock thanks a million for the .blend file.

[@Glowbox3D]

Fantastic tutorial. Thank you. Love this!

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you so much! I’m glad it helps 👽

[@VazonInc]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Very useful

[@JesseBakerH]

4:35 oh my god i tinkered with this problem for hours trying to figure out how to solve it and i never even tried moving the modifier order

[@briangular2115]

best vid, exactly what i needed

[@Digital_ranger]

THANK YOU SOO MUCH GREAT TUTORIAL YOU SAVED ME

[@aaronnelson7605]

Thank you, this video is incredible.

[@Anton_Ushakov]

Thanks for your video! Very useful information

[@RyanKingArt]

Great tutorial!

[@SethMicek]

if you want to have collisions with a round cable (it will be slower) you can use extruded cylinders (if you subdivide it you need to give each cut a face so it has supports)

[@markokovacevic3225]

Thank you for this tutorial. I have learned a lot!

[@RomboutVersluijs]

That looks pretty nice! Think we need to play with dampening, it looks so jumpy

[@anshulmadurwar8132]

Thank you so much for this video, Its really helpful for a beginner like me in physics modulations!!

[@KuntaTV]

exactly what i'm searching for my wip thank you dud

[@jonathanhudson3795]

Nice work - thanks for the tutorial. I am currently colliding cables with objects.

[@MahckMedia]

Awesome! Will be buying this thanks! Gonna use it for my next bball vfx video

[@BaramuLord]

Great content!! You just got a new sub right here! I'm new to blender, literally been messing around it for 3 weeks, but you made it possible for me to create a more complex scene for my first project which I'm still working on. I'll make a video and post it for the world to judge! :D

[@diogocamilo1981]

Very nice, thank's!

[@privacytest9126]

That was an awesome tutorial, thank you!

[@DryadDryAgain]

Thank you! This is so cool and exactly what I needed

[@creative.coderie]

Your tutorials are amazing. Thank you!!

[@Tamer_Gomaa]

Thanks for this great tutorial, and for sharing your effort

[@WagnerDeQueiroz]

Trabalho Magnifico! Parabéns por compartilhar!

[@Thereisnochannel-rl9td]

Thaaaanks!!! Really super video!

[@lifesymbiont5769]

This will be really useful for my stuff, thank you allot.

[@acmtsing]

Great tips and tutorial! Thanks!

[@joe_fabricator]

Great tutorial! Thank you.

[@BlenderForge]

A really great tutorial!

[@burhanasegaf6590]

It's awesome tutorial.. thanks for this

[@radicant7283]

Fantastic! Good use of surface deform mod

[@theoclarke3568]

Amazing Work, really helped me out!

[@rededwards3479]

Excellent stuff!

[@victorvdr9]

thank you!!

[@Khakame]

Thank you so much man. This has really helped me.

[@okangullu]

nice informations. thenks

[@enochliang7040]

Thanks for the great tutorial

[@kreeslak]

Thanks you!

[@4-MinuteMiles]

Awesome video! Thanks

[@muhammadfarooqi]

you just earned a subscriber! and manyyyyyy likes :)

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you so much!

[@flomasterflomaster2044]

Thank you for the video

[@victorvdr9]

Thanks for watching!

[@infinity._.3d]

very nice and usefull tutorial

[@BEEEya]

This is Awesome 🙌

[@constantinezh7156]

Thank you very much sir !

[@rajakaz4075]

You are the best

[@tcheadriano]

Amazing!!!

[@MVARTZ]

Nice tutorial! I thought you were gonna use the mesh deform modifier, but the surface modifier works as well apparently.

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you! Yeah, mesh deform also could work, but I think this can be a little bit better in terms of performance because it's just a stripe :)

[@MVARTZ]

@@victorvdr9 Absolutely! Makes senses! 😁

[@robertsontirado4478]

Awesome, thanks.

[@jamesgerard9330]

love it

[@bassit1292]

Verre nice thank you

[@victorvdr9]

ⵣبسيط الأمازيغي bassit glad you like it!!👽

[@blenderpete]

Awesome. 👍👏 Subed immediately!

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you for your support! :)

[@januszpolewski2910]

Wow, thank you a ton for this tutorial! I've been struggling for quite some time with a decent way to simulate cables the way you explain here. I hate to ask, but do you happen to know how to set the cable up to collide with other cables with the same properties? Enabling collision only messes up the simulation. I'm looking forward to more insightful videos of yours. Great content! :)

[@victorvdr9]

Hi! Thank you! Glad you find it useful :) I'll need to try that! I think is more complicated because Blender tries to collide vertex with vertex, so it could get weird and I don't now if that is possible. In that case I think you would need to simulate cloth with the actual mesh, but that could be painful! 🤔

[@MAJmufin]

@@victorvdr9 could it work if you convert the spline to mesh?

[@victorvdr9]

@@MAJmufin Yeah! definitely is the straight way to go but It'll be so expensive in terms of processing...

[@januszpolewski2910]

@@victorvdr9 Thank you, for the suggestion, I've set the collide modifier for the Cable mesh, that was set as the surface deform object, so no wonder it didn't had the desired result. Stacking the collide modifier on top of the cable setup itself actually worked perfectly. Due to the many collisions all the cables in my scene escalate over time, as they are stacked over each other, but playing around with the settings should fix that behavior. Thanks again for giving it a thought :D

[@victorvdr9]

@@januszpolewski2910 Oh that's great! Thanks so much for sharing!

[@GentlemanCrafterUK]

Great tutorial, thank you! Quick follow up question ... how would I go about hanging something from the rope, for example, a pendant?

[@salutnmm]

Thanks a lot!

[@GPaCrewify]

Awesome!

[@gustavo_fajardo]

Very good tutorial, how can i make 2 cables collision with each other?

[@ADEPS.]

shortcut for hooking is ctrl + H

[@calvinromeyn]

Thank you for showing this! Is there a way to bake out the surface deformer so it can be exported as a .abc to be used in Unreal or similar? Or a way to simulate the high res cable geo without it collapsing in itself?

[@mikemartire1612]

After extruding vertices, assigning weights, and adding the cloth mod my "cable" doesnt fall with gravity, even though gravity is enabled. Any ideas why this might happen?

[@wadepelletier1284]

same here :(

[@AustinPageofficial]

my strip hangs from the hooks but if I play the timeline and move the hooks, the hooks move but the cloth strip doesn't follow. Sometimes I can get it to work but not always. Any ideas?

[@cantcomeupwithanythinggood]

The pin group and the vertices that are hooked have to be the exact same and the hook modifier has to be above the cloth modifier.

[@SzymonWarunek]

You are genius! - i thought that - it was only possible to do that in 3ds max - 3ds max - old version had reactor angine,in which,there was rope simulation module,but i did not know that,blender was capable of doing that type of simulation.

[@victorvdr9]

Thanks! As you can see, Blender is awesome :)

[@SzymonWarunek]

is it possible to attach objects to rope? - so that i would create a swinging ladder.

[@SzymonWarunek]

@@victorvdr9 can you make video tutorial - how to create rope simulation,but how to attach objects to rope,so that i would create a swinging bridge.

[@victorvdr9]

@@SzymonWarunek Sounds interesting! Thanks. Right now I don't have so much time for tutorials tho. Maybe in the future!

[@sthtchprieto9375]

Cool!

[@mybiznizisbangingdooog7481]

I’m order to make the cable just go to add curves knots catenary be sure to have both objects that you want to have each cable end pinned to selected cheers that way you don’t have to do too much

[@davidregalado3037]

My collision is not working, why?

[@holoiresearch3438]

Super cooooool! But would you know how to use the cable to drag the other cap? like some elastic cable pulling the cap towards the other cap

[@SzymonWarunek]

wow - i have never seen that video,in which,it would be possible to collide rope simulation with another object,collider.

[@skipdonker]

I want to make something like this and use it in unreal engine. Will this exort to unreal engine or what steps do i have to take to make this blender>unreal export go smooth in terms of physics?

[@victorvdr9]

Maybe exporting it on alembic format could work

[@sravyachadalla8045]

Please help me create empty hooks pressing f3 or s3. It doesn’t work for me, I did try with hook modifier but doesn’t seem to have same results.

[@idoxan111]

I am curious about the specifications of the PC you are using.

[@fidomobile4569]

i

[@rupert274]

3:58 I think you pressed a keyboard shortcut to open the menu where you can change empty's to display as spheres but I don't know the shortcut and I don't have that menu.

[@ArtificallyUnintelligent]

cant seem to find the single vert in my mesh, kind of annoying :(

[@SuperFlyBallerz]

is there a way to change the start position of one end of the cable? So far it's laying flat in a straight line but if i try to move the hook/object on one end, the cable wil remain in its original position.

[@GregMoress]

I had the same problem. Move the end piece when the animation is playing. Stop the animation and move it back to frame 1.

[@SzymonWarunek]

will you create a swinging bridge tutorial,by using your method?

[@FrankySus]

Trying to recreate the goo gun shooting from fortnite. I'm thinking I make a cable type thing like this and use a force field on it. What do you think?

[@jamestate1145]

Can you make a video on how you use the paid version of archipack?

[@victorvdr9]

Hi! Sorry I don't use the paid version of archipack!

[@jamestate1145]

@@victorvdr9 Oh okay! Thank you Victor:))

[@sonnyobrien]

where is single vert??

[@Loudas762]

how to make a collision between two cables?

[@Team_rk288]

Same method I used but when I apply skin modifier mesh will explode

[@alfianisakarromah4092]

Briliant!! But how to export it? Can u tell me please, if I want use this object to make AR in 3D with unity?

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you! Hmmm not sure. I didn't try that. I think you could export it as FBX, and if it has some animation baked, you could try to export as alembic.

[@ChristopherLin]

Look at that

[@portz96]

Wow, can it be used in a unity project? I need to find a way to simulate a string in in a physical simulation

[@Team_rk288]

Sam way can we broke that hose into two pieces any idea plz

[@jpozo2046]

Hi! Thanks for the tutorial, i have a problem, when I press Bind on the surfaceDeform can´t do it. Out of memory message appears. I tried to do with a very low poly mesh but still happens. Any idea?

[@jpozo2046]

Ok, solved, I was trying to do it with a single line of vertex to do a rope, but you have to extrude a little bit to create faces and then works.

[@frankschafer6535]

Thanks for some ideas :) This is for sure a great video for someone who wants to stupidly repeat what you did. Useless tough for someone who wants to understand this. To say to (unfortunately most of) the HOWTO makers: - Be essential! The handles don't have anything to do with cable simulation. They are disturbing here. 0:57 "I didn't duplicate the " (was it Volumes?) "Here we go" You delete something. What and why? 1:09 There is no "Add Single Vert" in vanilla Blender. I guess you have some Add On installed. Explain such things! 2:05 You create a Pin Group. This would be a good place to explain what a Pin Group is. ;)) 2:20 "I need a Vertex more" disturbing and it shows you didn't prepare your presentation. 2:30 What is the reason for the vertex weights in the vertex group? 2:39 Before enabling Cloth you changed to Object Mode. This is essential and it took me a while to recognize. ;) 2:48 "We need more room here ..." not the truth, disturbing and confirming unprepared presentation. 3:10 Selecting the Vertices is only disturbing, you select the Pin Group afterwards anyway. Experimenting during presentation? ;)) 3:40 Menu Vertex -> Hooks -> Hook to New Object would make more clear what you are doing. Especially if the Modifiers Panel is opened it would become clear what is going on. (The modifiers appear there exactly at this moment) 3:58 - 4:36 Totally irrelevant for cable / rope simulation 5:05 "ah .. and if this happens" ... you need to clear the Simulation Cache. Nobody will understand what moving a vertex means. BTW: This is missing in Blender. The fastest way to do so is to go to Modifiers -> Cloth -> Cache and turn Disk Cache on and off. The blue line in the Timeline has to be not present. 5:32 Mesh -> Transform -> Skin Resize, nobody will know the hotkeys (meaning) of something she learns actually (This holds for all such situations: The menus show the hotkeys - the hotkeys do not show the menus they are related to) I'll leave the remainder of the video out. Sorry - Videos like this could be a great source of information for everybody but: Do not say! Explain and make the background clear! I hope you got me I'm looking forward for more such vids from you with some of the above (constructive) critics taken into account. I'll give you a "thumbs up" anyway Its some times hard to figure things out in Blender only from the manual and from the user interface. ;))

[@JuliusEmilArendt]

Nice Video, but I got an issue: I want to import the last Cable to Unity to use it for my game, and it does not work in Unity. But in Blender it does. How do I avoid that issue?

[@ADEPS.]

There's a similar question from another video: @giulianoscalamandre1555 1 year ago That looks great! just one question. is it possible to export something like this into a game engine? @BlenderSecrets 1 year ago Maybe by selecting just the ropes and then exporting the selection as FBX, I think that may keep the animation. Or some format like that which is like an animated mesh without keyframes.

[@daw9938]

how do I do this with cablerator

[@victorvdr9]

that's something I have to investigate! no shortcuts as far as I know.

[@wadepelletier1284]

I followed all the steps, but mines not falling after assigning pin and pressing play

[@l1277]

I had the same problem but I was in Edit Mode. Switched to Object Mode and it fell. Not sure if that helps you!

[@Nithishkumar_24]

can we use it unity