2. Using the "Spline Draw" tool (Create -> Spline Draw), create the basic shape of what you want your tube or or tentacle to follow. (Fig 1.)
3. Create the baseshape of your tube in a new layer using the "Disc" tool (Shift+O or Create->Disc). Make sure that its just one single polygon, the disc needs to be completely flat. (Fig 2.)
4. Align your flat polygon to the Spline that you made in Step 2. Select the single polygon and move it to the START point of your spline. You can easily check where the start point is by selecting the spline using "polygon" selection (Fig 3.). Select the polygon and align it to the spline at its starting point (Fig 4.). Use the "Flip" tool (Shift+F or Detail->Polygons->Flip) to flip the normal of the polygon in the proper direction.
5. With the basepolygon aligned with your spline its time to make it into a pipe. Put the basepolygon in the foreground and the spline in the background. The apply the "Rail Extrude" tool (Ctrl+R or Multiply->Rail Extrude). When you press it a new dialog popups up with various options (Fig 5.). Lets take a look at the various options and what they do to your polygon, i will show with pictures (Fig 6-8.).
Fig 6. Using the default settings it extrudes your polygon along the shapes, adding segments where needed.Pretty useful.
Fig 7. If we use "Uniform Lengths" you can edit the number of segments which will be used.
Fig 8. Since i discovered that the "Uniform Knots" works a little different than previous versions i have replaced Fig 8. with a picture of a moose.
6. Continuing this tutorial, use the "Uniform Lengths" option and put 50 in the segments box. Press "OK".
7. W00t..a tube! (Fig 9.)
8. It looks a little flat, so lets add some detail to it.
9. Create a new Disc, somewhat wider than your original extruded-to-an-leet-tube polygon. Give it a little thickness too. All in a new layer of course (Fig 10.).
10. Make yet ANOTHER Disc in a new layer, give it the same wideness as your tube, and make it thicker than the previous Disc (Fig 11.)
11. Using basic Booleans, subract the thinner disc from the wider (Fig 12.)
12. With your hollow cylinder finished, use the "Stretch" tool (H or Modify->Stretch) stretch it in the top view to about 90% in each axis (X/Z). When using the Stretch tool, make sure that the cursor is in the center of your object when you apply it, or the geometry will shift in an unwanted way.
13. Now with your newly stretched hollow disc, move it into position and align it with the spline in the exact same way as you did with your now-extruded-into-an-awesome-tube polygon (Fig 13.)
14. With your hollow disc on the foreground and the spline in the background, apply the "Rail Clone" tool (Multiply->Duplicate->Rail Clone). "Hey, this looks familiar" you think. The Rail Clone works the exact same way as the Rail Extrude only that it creates copies of your object along a specified spline instead of extruding the object. Lets use "Uniform Lengths" and 20 copies. Press "OK" You should see 20 copies of the hollow disc appear. Whoa..now we're cookin'!! (Fig 14.)
15. Now, put your leet tube in the foreground and your awesome row of hollow-disc copies in the background. Perform a Boolean subtract (Shift+B or Multiply->Combine->Boolean) (Fig 15.)
16. Thats a basic pipe for you, delete all other layers than the pipe. Take it into LightWave, render (Fig 16.)
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