Sarah Clarity Studios

Chapter 3: Cable, Bus‑Bar & Conduit Routing Language

Created by Sarah Choi (prompt writer using ChatGPT)

Cable, bus‑bar & conduit routing language

Power becomes believable when it has a path. You can design the most gorgeous reactor or battery pack in the world, but if there’s no visible logic for how energy moves from “source” to “limbs” to “weapons,” the mecha can start to feel like a hollow costume. Cable, bus‑bar, and conduit routing is the visual language that turns energy from an abstract idea into a physical system.

For concept artists, routing language is not about drawing every wire. It’s about creating consistent, readable pathways that imply distribution, protection, maintenance, and failure. For production artists, routing language is a coordination tool: it tells modelers where geometry needs to exist, tells rigging where deformation and clearance matter, tells VFX where surges and arcs should travel, and tells UI where “power state” cues can be anchored.

This article focuses on how to depict routing for battery/cell systems, reactors, and hybrid setups. We’ll cover cable and conduit types, junction logic, camera-friendly placement, silhouette impact, iconography, failure states, and practical ways to package routing rules so a whole faction’s lineup feels coherent.

What routing language needs to solve

Routing language has three jobs. First, it must explain distribution: where power enters the body and how it reaches major consumers like actuators, thrusters, shields, and weapons. Second, it must communicate protection and vulnerability: what’s armored, what’s exposed, and what fails first. Third, it must support readability at speed: the audience should recognize “power paths” even when the mecha is moving, partially occluded, or covered in VFX.

A useful guiding question is: if the mecha takes a hit in the shoulder, what loses power? If it boosts hard, what “lights up” along the route? If a pack is swapped, where is the disconnect point? Routing language answers these without dialogue.

The routing vocabulary: what each path type implies

Soft cables and looms

Soft cables suggest flexibility and human‑serviceable complexity. They read as “electronics,” “controls,” or lower-current distribution. Visually, soft cables like bundles, clamps, grommets, and protective sleeves. They often live in protected channels, under panels, or inside bellows at joints.

Soft cable language is great for sensor arrays, actuated fingers, head units, and fine-control surfaces. It also supports storytelling: frayed looms, taped repairs, and improvised reroutes immediately suggest field maintenance.

Hard conduits and pipes

Hard conduits imply protection and medium-to-high current flow. They read as industrial, durable, and planned. Conduits love segmented tubes, armored sheathing, and mechanical joints that allow movement. They often route along structural bones: frame rails, spine ridges, or limb exteriors with guards.

Hard conduits are excellent for faction silhouettes because they can become part of the “linework” that defines a design at medium distance.

Bus-bars (flat, rigid conductors)

Bus-bars imply very high current and engineered distribution. They read as “power backbone.” Visually, bus-bars like flat plates, laminated stacks, and bolted connections. They often show up near the source (battery bay, capacitor bank, reactor output) and at major junctions (shoulder/hip distribution blocks).

Bus-bars are a strong choice for mecha because they can be integrated into armor as graphic “ribbons” or layered plates, giving you clean, readable structure without messy cable spaghetti.

Cable chains and energy guides

Energy chains (the articulated plastic/metal cable guides used in industrial machines) are a believable way to route moving cables across large joints. They communicate: “this joint moves a lot, and the wiring is protected.” They also add a distinctive industrial texture that reads well in close-ups.

If you use chains, place them where the motion path is clear—like behind knees, along elbows, or between torso and arm mounts—and make sure they won’t collide with armor in your design.

Quick-disconnects and service breaks

Any system that is modular (swappable packs, detachable limbs, replaceable weapons) needs visible disconnect logic. Quick-disconnects can be plugs, couplers, docking collars, or clamp plates. Visually, they should be unmistakable: keyed shapes, alignment arrows, and locking mechanisms.

Disconnect language is one of the most production-friendly things you can add. It tells rigging and animation how parts separate, and it tells VFX where arcs or sparks appear when something is damaged.

Battery/cell systems: routing that supports modularity

Battery-fed mecha often have multiple packs feeding a main bus. The routing language should communicate “many sources, one distribution.” A good pattern is to show pack seams and then route from each pack into a collector—a distribution block—before it runs into the body.

Collector blocks are your friend. They can be chunky, readable shapes with bolts, warning icons, and small status lights. If you place a collector at the hip or back, you get a consistent read across designs: “this is where the power spine starts.”

Battery systems also benefit from visible charge buffers near high-demand features. For example, boosters might have a capacitor ring on the thruster shroud with a short, thick conduit leading back to the collector. This shows the audience why certain abilities drain faster.

Reactor systems: routing that communicates safety and containment

Reactor routing is less about “capacity” and more about “control and isolation.” A reactor wants visible layers: containment, regulation, distribution. You can show this as concentric zones. The innermost zone is sealed and heavy. The next zone is regulation hardware: heat exchangers, converters, or thick junction plates. The outer zone is distribution: trunk lines that run to limbs and systems.

One of the strongest reactor cues is redundancy. Multiple trunk lines, parallel runs, or duplicated junctions suggest “this is mission critical.” If a line is severed, another can reroute. Even if your story doesn’t simulate redundancy, the visual language communicates seriousness.

Reactor routing also benefits from strict hazard marking boundaries. Place warning bands at the transition between containment and distribution. This tells the audience “do not open” and gives production a clear place for VFX events like venting or emergency shutters.

Hybrids: show the difference between sustained and burst paths

In hybrid systems (reactor plus buffers), routing language should show two different “kinds” of lines. One set is steady trunk distribution from the reactor to the body. Another set is burst delivery from buffers to high-demand features.

A useful trick is to make the burst path visually thicker, shorter, and more direct. For example, a capacitor bank near the shoulder feeds the arm weapon through a thick bus-bar plate, while the normal actuator supply uses a protected conduit line. The audience can learn: “thick short lines are burst power.”

This distinction is also production-friendly. Gameplay and VFX can attach “charge-up” effects to the burst path and keep the steady path calmer.

Where routing should run: camera-friendly trunk paths

If you want routing to be readable, give it a “highway.” The most common and believable highways are the spine, the underarm channels, and the inner thighs. These are areas where the mecha’s structure naturally gathers.

A spine trunk is the cleanest read. You can run a bus-bar plate stack along the back or under a dorsal ridge, then branch at shoulders and hips. Underarm channels are great for arm distribution because they remain visible in many action poses. Inner thigh trunks are great for leg power, especially for heavy walkers where hip joints are visually prominent.

Avoid routing that crosses major silhouette landmarks in confusing ways. If a trunk line disappears behind armor and reappears somewhere unrelated, the viewer stops believing the system. Consistent “entry and exit” points build trust.

Branch points: how to make distribution believable

Power distribution feels believable when it branches like anatomy. Think of shoulders and hips like “arterial junctions.” Place a junction box or distribution plate there and treat it as the limb’s entry point.

A good branch point has three cues: a physical node (block/plate), a fastening method (bolts/clamps), and a marking cue (icon stripe or label). If you add a small indicator light or segmented strip, you also gain a place to show state changes during action.

In concept sheets, define your branch nodes clearly. In production, this prevents “floating” cables that don’t know where they attach.

Joint crossings: how routing behaves when things move

Joints are where routing language either sells the mecha or breaks it. If a cable crosses a knee, it needs a story: slack loops, a cable chain, a telescoping conduit, or a protected tunnel.

For elbows and knees, the most believable solutions are cable chains on the “safe side” of the bend (often the back of the joint) or telescoping conduits that compress and extend along the joint axis. For rotating joints like shoulders and hips, routing can pass through a rotary coupler housing—an obvious ring-like module that implies rotation without tangling.

In concepting, it’s enough to show one clear joint routing solution and then repeat it consistently across the design. In production, call out “no collision zones” around these solutions so rigging can maintain clearance.

Surface integration: channels, ribs, and armor seams

You don’t always need exposed cables. You can imply routing through armor channels and seam logic. A recessed groove with clamp points suggests a conduit path even if the conduit itself is covered. This is a strong approach for sleek designs where you want clean surfaces but still need believable systems.

Bus-bars are especially good for surface integration. A laminated plate can sit flush with armor and still read as “power backbone.” This makes your design feel engineered rather than “wires pasted on.”

Visual hierarchy: how to avoid spaghetti

The biggest mistake in routing depiction is visual noise. If every line is equally thick and equally exposed, nothing reads. Use hierarchy.

Make trunk lines thicker and fewer. Make branch lines thinner and more numerous. Keep fine looms mostly hidden except where they must be visible (hands, sensor pods, exposed damage areas). Use repeated clamp spacing and consistent bend radii so the system looks manufactured.

A good rule is to limit yourself to one primary trunk per side of the body (or one central trunk) and a small number of visible branch routes. Everything else can be implied.

Iconography on routing: how to label without clutter

Routing language becomes stronger when you add minimal iconography. Put small arrows or chevrons near junctions to imply direction. Put warning icons near high-current bus-bars. Put “disconnect” icons near couplers. Keep icons consistent across the faction.

For batteries, you can label pack-to-collector lines with simple segmented markers that match your charge-state iconography. For reactors, use containment icons and redline boundaries near the transition out of the core.

Avoid heavy text labels unless you’re in a close-up technical sheet. In action, icons should be shape-based and readable under motion blur.

Routing as vulnerability: designing weak points intentionally

If routing is exposed, it becomes a story target. This is useful. A visible trunk line on the back can be a dramatic weak point, or it can be armored with cages and shutters to show defensive design.

Decide which philosophy your faction uses. Some factions expose systems because they prioritize serviceability. Others bury everything because they prioritize survivability. Either way, you should show intentional protection: guards, recessed channels, sacrificial covers, or emergency cutoffs.

In gameplay contexts, clear weak points can feel fairer. In cinematic contexts, they create strong “hit reactions”: sparks along a conduit, a power surge traveling to a junction, a limb going dead.

Failure and stress visuals: what happens along the route

A strong routing system gives you satisfying stress tells. Under high load, trunk lines can show pulsing light, subtle heat glow, or a traveling “surge” effect. Near failure, you can show flicker, intermittent arcs, or localized smoke from a junction block.

Battery systems might show surges toward high-demand features and then a gradual dimming as buffers deplete. Reactor systems might show stability changes near regulation hardware and then controlled venting rather than random flicker.

For production, define a simple escalation ladder: normal (calm), stressed (slow pulse), overloaded (fast pulse + warning), fault (flicker + lockout icon), severed (arcs + dead limb).

Concepting-side guidance: building routing rules early

In early exploration, treat routing like a silhouette feature, not an afterthought. Pick your trunk highway (spine, underarm, inner thigh) and make it part of the design’s graphic rhythm. Then pick your branch nodes (shoulder/hip) and make them repeatable shapes.

Do a quick “routing pass” on your thumbnails. Draw only trunk lines and nodes—no details. If the route reads clearly, you can add complexity later. If it doesn’t read, no amount of small cables will fix it.

Next, decide the faction’s routing dialect. Are lines exposed and rugged, or recessed and clean? Do you see clamps and grommets, or laminated plates and sealed channels? Lock this early so the lineup stays coherent.

Finally, test routing in a dynamic pose. Cables that look fine in an orthographic view can look impossible in motion. If you can’t imagine the joint moving without ripping the line, redesign the joint crossing.

Production-side guidance: packaging routing for downstream teams

In production, your goal is to make routing implementable without improvisation. Provide a simple routing diagram view: a 3/4 rear and a 3/4 front with trunk lines highlighted. Label the major nodes: source, collector, shoulder node, hip node, weapon node, thruster node.

Call out what is geometry versus texture. If a conduit is geometry, specify diameter ranges and clamp spacing. If it’s texture-only, specify the channel depth and seam logic. For joints, include a “movement note” that describes the intended routing mechanism (cable chain, telescoping conduit, rotary coupler).

If the design has removable parts, specify disconnect points explicitly and show them in an “exploded” mini sketch. This prevents rigging and animation from guessing and keeps VFX consistent.

Also align routing with your charge-state iconography. Decide where status indicators live on trunk lines or nodes, and define how they animate under different power states.

Practical recipes you can reuse immediately

Recipe A: Spine bus-bar backbone

Run a laminated bus-bar stack along the spine under a dorsal ridge. Branch to shoulders and hips through chunky distribution plates. Use minimal warning stripes near the source and small direction chevrons near nodes.

Recipe B: Underarm conduit channels

Route arm power through recessed underarm channels that remain visible in action poses. Cross shoulders with a rotary coupler ring and feed forearms through a cable chain behind the elbow.

Recipe C: Hip collector + inner thigh trunks

Place a collector block on each hip. Run protected conduits down the inner thigh into a knee junction, then into the shin. This gives legs a believable supply without cluttering the outer silhouette.

Recipe D: Burst path overlays for hybrid systems

Add a short, thick burst bus-bar from a capacitor bank to a weapon/booster. Keep the normal actuator supply thinner and calmer. Animate surges only on burst paths to keep reads clean.

Common pitfalls

One pitfall is routing that ignores articulation. If your conduit crosses a joint without a mechanism, it reads as a drawing mistake. Another pitfall is cable overload: too many exposed lines flatten the design and make it harder to model and rig.

A third pitfall is inconsistency. If trunk lines change location between views or variants, the audience stops trusting the system. Choose your highways and stick to them.

A finishing checklist

When you finalize routing language, you should be able to answer: where is the source, and where is the first collector/regulator node? What is the main trunk highway and can it be seen from the intended camera? Where are the shoulder and hip branch nodes, and how do they attach physically? How do lines cross each major joint without collision? Which routes are trunk, which are branch, and which are fine looms? Where are disconnect points for modular parts? What are the stress and failure visuals along the route, and do they match your charge-state iconography?

If you can answer those clearly in your concept sheets, your mecha will feel powered in a way that is readable, cinematic, and production-ready.