I have a fairly simple question, that has probably been asked a thousand times already. But, countless searches have yielded zip.
My question: how can I extrude a plane along a path? I want to create a simple wire, hanging between two poles. I have tried the traditional method, of extruding a bezier circle, along the path. But, the result has far too many faces. I would like to extrude a plane or circle with only six sides, to keep the face count low. The wire will be small. And, I could use a sub-surf modifier, if I need more smoothing.
Thanx.
But, the result has far too many faces. I would like to extrude a plane or circle with only six sides, to keep the face count low.
Reduce the resolution of the bezier circle you are using as the bevel object and the resolution of the path. With curves you can set the resolution of both to be different for the viewport and for rendering (low res for a quick viewport and high res for a nice render)
Alternative for just a circular cross section, set the curve Fill to ‘Full’
Increase the bevel depth value for the wire thickness and the bevel resolution value for the number of sides for the cross section (value of 1 would give a cross section of 6 sides)
Thanks Richard. That worked. After doing a search on “resolution”, I found that it was controlled by the “U” value. Also, on a circle (unlike an open curve) the resolution only refers to one quadrant. So, to make a square or diamond (4 sides) I need to enter a value of “1”. An octagon would need a value of 2, etc.
As it turned out, for a wire, I only needed a 4-sided “circle”. Adding a sub-surf modifier and smoothing (after converting to a mesh) produced a nearly perfect bent tube.