Random Cables

Random Cables creates catenary or straight cables from selected faces in multiple selected mesh objects. The resulting curve objects representing the cables will be connected depending on how many face islands or groups are selected from these objects.

Figure 1

Here are the redo properties and what they do:

Cable Type

This has 2 options: Catenary and Curve. Catenary generates cables with a slack effect using the literal z axis as the ground for the slack direction. Curve will generate straight cables whose attitude and direction can be shaped by multiple properties including the normals saved using the Normal Picker operator.

Spline Type

This has 2 options: Bezier and Poly. This only appears when using Cable Type: Catenary and allows you to switch between using Bezier or Poly type cables. Bezier curve has additional controls in its segment points for smoother transitions while Poly is more simplistic with just one control point per segment.

Slack

This appears when you use Cable Type: Catenary. This lets you set the minimum and maximum slack effect for the cables.

Manual Offset

This only appears when using Cable Type: Curve. This lets you offset the curve in the literal or global x, y and z axis.

Normal Offset

This has 2 properties: Min and Max. This allows you to set the minimum and maximum offset of the cables into the direction using the saved normal information using the Normal Picker operator.

Noise

This has 2 properties: Noise and Wiggle. Noise will offset the cables in random directions. Wiggle will offset each segment of the cable/curve in random directions - the resolution can be controlled using the Steps property.

Curve Seed

This randomizes the slack effect for Catenary, noise and wiggle for Curve using a seed number.

Cable Amount

The number of cables that's going to be generated. Depending on the settings, this number only represents the total amount of cables that can be generated but can sometimes be less.

Origin Seed

This randomizes the location of the start and end points of the cables.

Island Limit

This has 3 options: None, Limited and Full. None has no effect, Limited will remove cables that are have start/end points on the same face island/group and Full will connect cables only for 2 different face islands using the Sort Method property unless randomized.

Using Limited and Full on a single face island will not generate cables since it needs separate face islands for their start and end points.

Island Seed

This randomizes which face islands will have the start/end points of the cables. The randomization will only happen when using Island Limit: Limited or Full and will randomize these end points between two face islands.

Sort Method

This has 4 options: None, X, Y and Z. This lets you determine the direction of how the face islands are sorted when connecting the cables allowing you to create the power line effect.

Margin

This creates a margin from your face selection allowing you to bunch the cables much closer together or avoid generating cables from the edges of your face selection which ends up on a sharp angled edge.

Offset

This allows you to offset the cables towards or away from the face selection.

Min Distance

This lets you remove cables that doesn't meet the minimum distance or length. This is useful for clearing out very short cables when using Island Limit: None.

Bevel

This has 2 properties: Radius and Resolution. Radius determines the thickness of the cable and Resolution controls the resolution of the cables making them rounder with higher numbers.

Resolution U

This allows you to control the amount of edge resolution running along the curve body.

Steps

This lets you control the segment point number or resolution of the curve.

Extrude

This allows you to use the extrude effect to widen the curve body.

Twist Mode

This has 3 options: Z-Up, Minimum and Tangent. The default is set to Minimum but if you spot any weird twisting on the cables, you can try the other options to fix it.

Twist Smooth

Twist smoothing amount for tangents used by the Twist Mode property.

Tilt

This lets you rotate the cable on its segments or handles.

Radius

This lets you set the radius/thickness of each segment of the curve.

Radius Seed

This randomizes the radius of each curve segment using a seed number.

Material Index

The Material Index property lets the resulting cloth sim mesh inherit a material from the active or work mesh.

The default value of -1 means it will use the active material in the work mesh if that material exists.

Using 0 and above means you will be using the 1st material in the material stack when using 0, the 2nd material when using 1 and so forth.

Using a material stack number when that material does not exist will assign no material to the resulting panel cut mesh.

Use Mirror

Symmetrize the cables or use an applied version of the source mesh to generate asymmetrical results.

Join Curves

Creates a single object containing all the cable/curve instances or separate them as individual objects.

No Overlap

This removes generated cables that are overlapping or clipping visible objects in the scene. Be careful with processing overheads when dealing with a lot of cables and multiple objects for overlap detection.

Hide objects you don't need for the overlap detection to speed up the process. This works differently from executing object collision in Panel Cloth which operates via selection because Random Cables can operate on multiple selected objects.

Overlap Self

This allows the cable to overlap or clip other cables generated in the current operation. Turning this off will remove cables that are overlapping or clipping other cables.

The will create even more processing overhead so be careful with the amount of cables before using it.