I’m having trouble working these things. Especially over short distances.
Even if I lock the head and tail positions, when I tweak the curve in the middle it ruins the aim of the head and tail.
Is there a way to lock that, too?
I’ve been trying as a workaround to edit the curve first, then assign it as the desired tripart brush last.
Any advice?
Lock start and Lock end in the Stroke-> Curve options ??
Yes, I mentioned that.
The head and tail positions of a hose stay locked, but the head and tail hardware sit at their locked positions and swivel out of alignment with the connecting stuff when I play with the middle curve…
May be some pics will help to understand your particular case. But curves are not perfectly exact and even locking start and end, those parts will rotate if you make changes in the body of the curve. I would just accept it and tweak with other tools as transpose lines or Move brush to sit in the right place and in the right position
Okay, well, I guess just commit to it and adjust it later with the move or transpose as you say.
Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t some way of locking the ends down better.
Lock Start and End will lock the curve position but not freezing or masking your actual start and end meshes, so i think you will have most case to fine adjust by hand
Hi there,
those guys can make you crazy, don’t they? 
But they are a monster tool not for IMM only, therefore I am very grateful for this thread to learn techniques from others.
This is mine so far:
1)
I played around lately and got a chance to control them better than before in uncheck “bend” to move the whole thing and check “bend” again to make tiny little adjustments.
While you move a complete curve with unchecked “bend” but checked “snap” it will still look what mesh is below and adjust the curve according to the Curve Projection Range (adjustable in “Curve Modifier Group”)
When you are hovering over the curve and your control circle turn bright blue you can adjust the size of this circle by pressing space. Instead of the brush size you are controlling the CurveEdit radius. (You’ll find it also in Curve Modifier Group in Stroke Palette but this is faster )
When you are almost there, but some small zigzag is disturbing your fun, press smooth under “curve functions” several times.
(Check Curve Smoothness)
You have to click the curve again to transfer the smoothing information to your IMM brush - same as changed brush size.
Then I press “snapshot” to produce the mesh and delete, or I move the curve to another place.
Unckeck “bend” and “snap” to move a curve where ever you want without loosing shape.
To have it everything comfortable before me I take the “Stroke Palette” to left and uncheck “AutoClose UI Groups” in Preferences -> Interface to have all tool available without opening it again and again.
This helped me, but didn’t made me a curve master to be honest.
Haven’t touched all possibilities for sure,
Check this:
http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/stroke/curve/
http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/stroke/curve/
http://docs.pixologic.com/reference-guide/stroke/curve-modifiers/
For demystifying those crazy wobbling snakes a bit.
Freezing once adjusted curve segments by…masking?..is it possible? someone listening? …would be cool.
Real freezing without rotating etc.
Or converting to Bezier, but then with an x,y,z, moving cross like in max or maya style - no “action” line for the last bits.
Stretching curves (not applying new segments at the very end )with auto implementing segments and freezed segments which are not under the Curve Edit Radius would be very cool too. - If not already there???
Hope this helps a bit already even for you prob and was not boring.
The problem with curves is that everytime you click on them they update to all the new parameters. For example size, steps but also if you changed your curve brush completely it will work. So they need to implement first how to stop updating the curve each time you click on it. Then masking and other features may be would be unlocked :rolleyes:
Ok. Freeze size, freeze steps first, then masking.
I just would like to say, that even with this urgently missing features the basic how they work is very cool!