Need some Advice from the Experts!

[DBowker3D]

Hi Guys:

I'm looking for some advice here. Note that I am working with 3DS Max 2017 (or 2018 when the RC update happens) if that makes any difference.

I've tried reading through the tutorials, but either I'm not quite getting it, or maybe haven't looked at the right one. Basically I need to take the standard RC Pipe preset and I want to alter it (maybe make my own, not sure) and make a custom version to generate electrical conduit. The standard pipes are great for water, gas and the like, but look nothing like what you'd use for electrical or data cables. Take a look at the attached image and you'll see what I am after.

So the major requirements here are:

• I need a default larger diameter arc for the corners. Basically wire conduit has an arc radius 3-4 times larger than you'd have with a gas or water pipe bend.
  I need to replace the "standard" collar/nut/bolt group with the conduit coupling I've modeled

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated. Also, is there a place for people to post their custom setups? That'd be great, and I would definitely post mione once I had it up and running!
Said conduit coupling should always land at the beginning of the corner radius or even behind it.

[iToo]

Hi, you can modify easily one of the library presets to build this style. In this way:

1) Create in Max a piece for the main conduct and other for the coupling. The main conduct piece may have any length.
2) Create a RailClone object using the style Industrial->Ducting->Pipe 1.
3) Open the Style Editor. You will find three segments: "pipe tube", "pipe cap" and "pipe corner".
4) Select the "pipe tube" segment, click the Object button and pick your main conduct piece from the scene.
5) Repeat the process with pipe corner (assign to main conduct) and pipe corner (assign to the coupling piece).

Further adjustments:

- To make the corner section larger, you have two choices:

a) Scale in X the pipe corner" segment (Transform->Fixed->Scale X).
b) Use a different (larger) piece, instead the main conduct segment.

- To change the corner curvature (you will need to modify if corner section is larger), select the generator (Linear 1S) and increase Corner->Fillet Radius.

That should be enough for a basic setup. If you need help to complete it, please upload a test scene and we'll take a look to it.