Something I've been working on and still am, it is supposed to be something that should make it easy to model tons of cables in a area.

Still work todo on it, but it work by that you draw out one or more curves, then pipe them into the subnet, and it has alot of options like, min/max amount of subcables, min/max width, tension and so on.

The curves gets resample, wire simulated, colides with stuff and themself, im using a time-shift node so you can “pre-roll” and still have everything at frame 1 nice still so it behaves more like a modelling tool.
You can layer several of these ontop of each other for more art directability.

They all get UV-mapped after the wire sim has run so any stretching of the original wire should be negated.
The original CV's of the curve can be used as “holders” to pin the cables like they are hanging from something, but you also have a drop down to select, no holders and only start/end holders.

Width also determins how manny poly-sides a cable gets, and influences tension aswell as the previously mentioned min/max settings.

And I probably forgot something..and there are more features comming.

nice!
can we see a hip file on how are you doing the UVs?

pelos
nice!
can we see a hip file on how are you doing the UVs?

Actually I am writing a article about just that for the upcomming Vertex 3 magazine which will be free (as far as I know). If you dont know about it you can get 1 and 2 here already: http://artbypapercut.com/ [artbypapercut.com]

Cabler tool update:
- The circumference UV will now always be between 0 and 1, adjusting length relative to that.
- You can now with ramp interface decide where holders are spawned and not spawned (look at the panel to the right).

I also build a silly little sci-fi corridor to test it in “real world” situations, and sofar it works just as expected.

another test

I realise this hasn't been updated for a year, but I am new to Houdini and very much wanting to produce a lot of cables quickly. Landed here from Googling cables info.

Magnus, did you develop this any further? For sale perhaps?

I can't find any other posts on the forum here (granted I've only been looking 20 minutes since registering) about this sort of helper to generate a lot of cables quickly. I am sure in time I could figure it out, but as I said I am rather new, and I also have time pressures and would gladly buy a helper tool.

Thanks
JG

Here is a quick attempt. The UVs are probably repeating too often along the length, but its a start.

Putting wires on top of one another can probably be done by an attribtransfer.

Interesting, thanks for the info. I'll look into this setup! Much appreciated.

Sorry not checking here to much but in terms of further development I did this:

https://www.orbolt.com/asset/MagnusL3D::ml_quickpipe [orbolt.com]

It is free to download and I didnt lock it so you can look inside it and learn from it.