iDRez

Here is a great technique I used to make a wire with maya. This sounds like a simple task but the trick was I want to make an uninsulated piano wire with all of the individual wires are exposed.

The requirements for the wire I needed was it had to be constructed for use over and over in different scenes and maintained it's proper proportions during manipulation. Using simple curves and connection editor I was able to achieve these requirements.

To start off I made the cross section of the wire. After examining it I noted that there was 7 smaller wires making this wire. One wire is in the middle and the other 6 wrapped around it. That makes for an easy construction.

Make a NURBS circle, move it in the X direction one diameter length. Change the rotating pivot point back to the world space origin. The world space origin is also the center of the initial circle.

Then duplicate it 5 times while rotating it 60 degrees on the Z axes.

Make a larger circle 3x the diameter and put that on another layer. You'll use that as a low rez version. Also add the center circle and put that on another layer. Most of the time you'll not see the center wire but you might at the ends.

Layout the path of the wire by using create -> CV curve tool. After creating the desired path I rebuild the curve to insure proper Parameter Range (0 to 1) and number of span. After that, add an arcLengthDimension node at the end of the curve by create -> messure tools -> Arc Length Tool or by using this MEL "arcLengthDimension curve1.u[1] ;"

Now extrude the circles along the path. You can do it all at once if you select all of the circles and then the path last then extrude.

To get the proper rotation based on the length you need to connect the Arc Length to the Rotation. Open the connection Editor and load the arcLenthDimensionShape node on the left and a extrude node from one of the new extruded shapes. Connect Arc Length to Rotation.

To adjust the ratio of the rotation to the length of the wire simply adjust the conversion node. To find that node, open the hypergraph and load the network for the extruded surface. You'll see that there isn't a node between the arcLength and the extrude node but there is a dashed line. Mouse over the dashed line and it shows unitConversion not the I/O of that connection as normal. This is because the dashed line indicates it is an auxiliary node. Show -> Show Auxiliary Nodes to see the unitCoversion node.

Select the node and you'll see in the attribute editor a single variable that you can adjust.

Now when you adjust and tweak your CV's of the path you'll maintain the proper rotation scale.