I am a starting 3D modeler and prefer to work with 3Ds max. Recently I was asked to do some animating; which is fine by me. Problem is, I have an enormous lack of experience with working with animations.

The animation is quite simple; but still, apparantly, too hard for me to find a solution/proper way of handling for.

It is a cable that will move around. In this, the cable needs to be viewed and doesn't make any fancy moves. It just moves from there to here; preferrably if the beginning of the cable stands still, but the ending moves. So basically it stretches out; or well, the 'top' animates.

I tried doing this on a simple path; but putting it on a path made the object follow the path. It didn't make any turns. I don't want a straight cylindar or whatever to move around as one. I want it to be able to move in corners/turns and all that.

So you literally get a cable that for example, goes from being an 'l' to being a 'L'. So the turns should be visible; that's what's most important. Example of what I want done:

[img][Link to img3.imageshack.us][/img]

The problem is that I have no clue how to do it. I searched for some tutorials for a while; but it's hard to search for something you don't even know of what it's named. So what should I do to make this work the way I want it to?

Please, any help/answer to my question is much appreciated!

Thanks,
Elydan.

---