Learn Maya 3D Nonlinear Deformers Part I – Bend

This is the first series out of six series which I plan. Nonlinear Deformers consisted of Bend, Flare, Sine, Squash, Twist, and Wave. Deformer earns you to apply for animation or modeling. Bend Deformer has 4 parameter is earning you to arrange, all this parameters haves the character of float (not just 1 or 0).

1. Envelope: according to me this parameter good for activating and non activating function of deformer (all nonlinear deformer has this parameter, thus I will not explain function of this parameter in the next series).
2. Curvature: good for determining how big object bend by using curve deformer.
3. Low Bound: determines the end of deformation (start from -1).
4. High Bound: determines the begins of deformation (start from 1).

The Explanation

Create Cube.

Select the cube and choose Deform > Nonlinear > Bend.

Set Curvature to -2 or 2, the cube would be in the form of like picture below.

Keep the curvature and set the low bound and the high bound. The cube would be in the form of like picture below.

And if you set the Envelope to 0 then the Bend Deformer not active.

For Modeling

Bend Deformer also earns you to apply to modeling process. One of the examples is make armchair. I make example of simple modeling a chair like picture below, you only need to make Cube then scale it until like picture below.

To make armchair I add two Cube (just one cube no problem, because you can duplicate the second cube later).

Select both cube then chooses Bend Deformer.

Set Bend Deformer parameter:

Curvature: 1.6 (depend on your object size)

Low Bound: 0

High Bound: 0

Now you have a simple simple chair..

For Animation

Till now I apply Bend Deformer to make animation of tree wiggles. Possibly many usefulness of Bend Deformer for animation which I don’t know, if you had function from Bend Deformer for modeling or animation you can share in this tutorial.

For animation you can make a tree. This is not difficult; you can apply Paint Effects and draw it to the scene (you just need one tree). After you have Paint Effects Tree then convert Paint Effects to Polygon (modify > convert > Paint Effects to Polygon) and the result like picture below.

Select tree then choose Bend Deformer.

Arranges position of Bend Deformer like picture below. Then arranges parameter Low Bound to 0 and High Bound to 1.

The Last step is arranged Curvature according to you desire in frame which you wishes.

In my scene, I key frame on frame 1 (for curvature 0.1), key frame on frame 10 (for curvature -0.1), and key frame on frame 1 (for curvature 0.1). After that I go to graph editor and select Curve > Post infinity > Cycle. Now I have infinity animation cycle until end of my frame.

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