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Blender Beginners:

Using Curves to Make a Rope



Adding a Curve to the Scene:
  • To add a curve you can use the hot key Shift + A then go to Curve then to Bezier
  • Or you can go to the bottom of your screen where it says Add, then choose Curve, then Bezier

Editing the Curve
  • The hot key to go into edit mode is Tab
  • Or at the bottom of your screen you can click where it says Object Mode and switch it to Edit Mode
    • *Note: You can scale (Hot Key S), grab (G), and rotate ( R) in Object Mode, but that can give you strange and unexpected results when dealing with curves so I would only recommend doing that in Edit Mode.
  • You can see the default curve more easily from Top View, the hot key is 7 on the Number Pad, or at the bottom of your screen you go to View, then Top.
  • In Edit Mode, and looking at the curve from Top View, you will see that it has a few parts to it.
    • The structure of a curve
      • It has 3 basic parts
      • Control Point
      • Handle
      • Segment
      • Curve handle types
        • By default they are set to align, but you can change them by using the tool box tab on the left side of your screen, or by using the hot key Control + V
        • The different handle type affect how the curve behaves between the control points
          • Auto - automatically set by blender to have the smoothest results, switch to aligned when moved
          • Aligned - lay in a straight line to one another and make the segment form a curve with no sharp angles
          • Vector - the handles point at the previous and next handle and that makes it possible to form curves, sharp corners, and straight lines
          • Free - the handles work independently of one another
      • By moving the control points you can change the shape of the curve. Just like with vertices. You can grab, scale, and rotate (depending on the type of handle)
      • You can also extrude the end points, which will add another control point to the selected end of the curve.
      • You can also delete control points, which will in turn shorten your segment, unless you are curve is closed/cyclic then it will just delete the vertex and the segment will adjust itself.
        • To toggle on and off cyclic (or open and close the loop) you can use the hot key Alt + c or go to the tool shelf on the left side of the window and click the button Tools > Curve Tools > Toggle Cyclic
    • Once you get the curve(s) into the shape you want it is then time to add depth to the curve. That is done in the Properties panel on the far right of the window, in the Object Data Tab.
      • To see any kind of volume you will need to skip down to where it says Geometry. For making a rope you will not need Extrude, but if you wish to make something more oblong or 2d/paper thin then you could use extrude, but we will be skipping it for this tutorial.
      • Under where it says Bevel, the Depth needs to be increased in order to add some thickness to your curve. To smooth it out a bit more increase the Resolution under Depth to 1 or more.
        • *Note that the more Resolution you have here the more vertices you will have once we convert the curve to mesh. The same goes for the Resolution Preview at the top of the tab. So use it sparingly.
      • To have the full shape of the rope go back up to the top of this Object Data tab to where it says Shape, and make sure that 3D is clicked, and where it says Fill, make sure that it is set to Full.

Converting the Curve to Mesh
  • Before converting the curve to a mesh you should make a copy of it in Object Mode and move it to another layer
    • With the curve selected use Control + D to duplicate, then right click to keep it in the same place.
    • To move it to another layer, with a copy of the curve selected, press M with your mouse in the 3D Viewport, when the layers icon pops up, left click on one of the small squares to move the copy of the curve to that layer.
    • Make sure you select the curve on the original layer, now to convert it to mesh you can use the hot keys, Alt + C, or at the bottom of the 3D Viewport , Object > Convert to > Mesh from Curve/Meta/Surf/Text
    • Now if you Tab into Edit Mode you will see vertices instead of control points, that is because it is now a mesh object.

Finishing Touches
  • To close off the ends, you can do it many ways, the simplest is to extrude the end, hot key E, then immediately right click to not move the new vertices out of place. Then scale them down until they are touching, hot key S for scale then the number 0 to scale the distance between them to zero and press Enter. Do the same on the other end.
  • Select all the vertices, the hot key A, and in the Tool Shelf to the Left of the 3D Viewport, in the Tools Tab, scroll down to where it says Remove, click Remove Doubles. At the top of the screen it will tell you how many duplicate vertices were removed. (the vertices which had the same coordinates as other vertices)
  • Select an edge loop along the bottom of the rope, or one that cannot be seen as well, the hot key is Alt + RMB. With that selected you want to Mark the Seam, the hot key is Control + E, then Mark Seam, or at the bottom of the 3D Viewport where it says Mesh > Edges > Mark Seam.
  • Unwrap the rope for texturing.
    • To see things better, split the 3D Viewport Window using the small diagonal lines in the top right corner or the bottom left corner of the window. Change one of the windows to the UV/Image Editor. This is so we can see the UVs and export them.
    • Select all the vertices, the hot key is A, and to unwrap the hot key is U.
      • You can adjust the UVs or leave them as they are.
    • Depending on what you are going to use this for, you can export it now as is. Go to the top of your screen where it says File > Export. If you do not see the type you need, you may need to edit the preferences and active an add-on. See the blender documentation for further information.

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