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/cablessimulation
Hard Surface Kitbash Pack used: gumroad.com/l/oJJN
Other kitbash packs: gumroad.com/victorvdr9
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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

[@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!

[@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!!

[@cheatcodes1977]

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

[@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

[@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/

[@creative.coderie]

Your tutorials are amazing. Thank you!!

[@RyanKingArt]

Great tutorial!

[@markokovacevic3225]

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

[@acmtsing]

Great tips and tutorial! Thanks!

[@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

[@BlenderForge]

A really great tutorial!

[@khasmaktruth]

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

[@theoclarke3568]

Amazing Work, really helped me out!

[@Tamer_Gomaa]

Thanks for this great tutorial, and for sharing your effort

[@DryadDryAgain]

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

[@privacytest9126]

That was an awesome tutorial, thank you!

[@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

[@Digital_ranger]

THANK YOU SOO MUCH GREAT TUTORIAL YOU SAVED ME

[@chasesummersanimations]

Thank you! Amazing tutorial.

[@joe_fabricator]

Great tutorial! Thank you.

[@aaronnelson7605]

Thank you, this video is incredible.

[@anshulmadurwar8132]

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

[@sottozen]

Great !!!! Thanks for this

[@victorvdr9]

Thanks for watching :)

[@diogocamilo1981]

Very nice, thank's!

[@KuntaTV]

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

[@Glowbox3D]

Fantastic tutorial. Thank you. Love this!

[@victorvdr9]

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

[@jonathanhudson3795]

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

[@Khakame]

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

[@dagi3d]

amazing tutorial!

[@thevoid6756]

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

[@enochliang7040]

Thanks for the great tutorial

[@4-MinuteMiles]

Awesome video! Thanks

[@radicant7283]

Fantastic! Good use of surface deform mod

[@Anton_Ushakov]

Thanks for your video! Very useful information

[@briangular2115]

best vid, exactly what i needed

[@MahckMedia]

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

[@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

[@BEEEya]

This is Awesome 🙌

[@WagnerDeQueiroz]

Trabalho Magnifico! Parabéns por compartilhar!

[@lifesymbiont5769]

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

[@GmrGibbo]

Amazing! thank you very much !

[@Thereisnochannel-rl9td]

Thaaaanks!!! Really super video!

[@burhanasegaf6590]

It's awesome tutorial.. thanks for this

[@robertsontirado4478]

Awesome, thanks.

[@rededwards3479]

Excellent stuff!

[@victorvdr9]

thank you!!

[@tcheadriano]

Amazing!!!

[@infinity._.3d]

very nice and usefull tutorial

[@vicsaizo]

amazing!!!

[@constantinezh7156]

Thank you very much sir !

[@kreeslak]

Thanks you!

[@bleve97]

Thank you!

[@okangullu]

nice informations. thenks

[@GPaCrewify]

Awesome!

[@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 :)

[@RomboutVersluijs]

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

[@salutnmm]

Thanks a lot!

[@blenderpete]

Awesome. 👍👏 Subed immediately!

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you for your support! :)

[@chinthanahewavithana719]

Thank you so much

[@jamesgerard9330]

love it

[@flomasterflomaster2044]

Thank you for the video

[@victorvdr9]

Thanks for watching!

[@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

[@rajakaz4075]

You are the best

[@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)

[@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?

[@sthtchprieto9375]

Cool!

[@GentlemanCrafterUK]

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

[@bassit1292]

Verre nice thank you

[@victorvdr9]

ⵣبسيط الأمازيغي bassit glad you like it!!👽

[@muhammadfarooqi]

you just earned a subscriber! and manyyyyyy likes :)

[@victorvdr9]

Thank you so much!

[@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

[@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! 😁

[@gustavo_fajardo]

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

[@LeClusterFunk]

Is there any way to fix this so I don't have to go into edit mode and move a vert with every single movement I make? It seems to either not work or lag behind my movements when I'm trying to move the objects the hooks are parented to.

[@SzymonWarunek]

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

[@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!

[@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

[@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.

[@idoxan111]

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

[@davidregalado3037]

My collision is not working, why?

[@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.

[@Team_rk288]

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

[@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 :(

[@SzymonWarunek]

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

[@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.

[@fidomobile4569]

i

[@ReedHoucek]

for some reason i cannot extrue the vertex. Any tips

[@ADEPS.]

shortcut for hooking is ctrl + H

[@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!

[@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.

[@Team_rk288]

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

[@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

[@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.

[@1puffinmuffin]

Would it be possible to have a wire fixed on one end and the other end have a light connected to it with physics enabled. like a hanging light?

[@victorvdr9]

Hi! Hmmmm, I think maybe you just need to parent the light with an empty. Maybe parented to the same hook!

[@juancarlosabad3298]

amazing!...great job, thanks! ....i want to try to simulate an elevator car , counterweight and 3-5 ropes, all driven by a motor traction pulley...do you thing it is feasible to manage to get all the physical constrains rights so that when the traction pulley rotates the car drives in one direction and the counterweight in another? ....any hint would be highly welcome! thank you!

[@richardkokstein]

Is there a reason why you want to simulate the elevator with physics? I think using object constraints with drivers would be better, easier and more stable. You could also rig the elevator with armature, bones and bone constraints. The movement of the elevator car and counterweight can be done using object constraints like transformation, which will convert a rotation of the pulley into a linear motion of the car (you can also use drivers). The rotation of the pulley / motor / gearbox can be done using drivers, keyframes or object constraints. The movement of the ropes can be done using curve modifier and just animating (for example) the x location of the rope (it will create an effect of the rope sliding alongside the curve). If you don't want to apply texture to your ropes, you can animate them just by stretching their ends to create an ilusion that they are moving.

[@juancarlosabad3298]

@@richardkokstein yes, there is a reason...i don't want just an animation but a simulation of the elevator dynamics including torque, power etc using dynamic friction, drag ...it should help design the elevator components like motor (rated and max. torque, power) , electrical drive etc. ...as for the animation, i also do want to have it as realistic as possible for explainer video purposes....thank you for your advice....

[@richardkokstein]

@@juancarlosabad3298 I fear that physics simulations in Blender won't give you accurate results for choosing motor torque or other real life components. I think simulating the elevator is possible, but there will be no connection with real world dimensions, weights, friction coefficients etc. You will have to use more sophisticated programs that are made for mechanical simulations to get accurate results. Here I made a short video about how I would go about creating some rope and pulleys with rigidbodies in Blender. It's a bit chaotic, sorry for that. Read the description for more info. Hope it will be helpful. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZjIn6Vqi71sias

[@Team_rk288]

Can we do in 3dmax

[@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.

[@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

[@ArtificallyUnintelligent]

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

[@vikasawasthi6370]

If this work in unity 3d ?