Way to animate the move multi-copy effect

[johnalexander1571]

I would be very cool to be able to keyframe the multi-copy effect so that I could show a series of vertical objects, in this case studs all sliding neatly into position.

[¢hris £und]

Could you just simulate that?

[johnalexander1571]

Hi Chris,

I think it can be done or something similar in several ways. Actually now that I write this and really rack my memory Mathew Holewinski has outlined a way to use animate along path and extract animation to do something quite close. He made a series of wooden bollard things that went around the edge of a garden path. He even had them getting a variable angle so they wobbled randomly. This was just with the tools. I probably should have done that method without the wobble. I was working on an animation yesterday, where the client wants a wall framed in an animation. Actually the product is a door, so the wall construction animation is not the point. My animations now need to be done so fast I have to show vertical studs fading in, which is just rendering a still and using After Effects to do the fade. I was thinking it would have been so cool to be able to pull off the studs sliding into position in the same time frame.

I have never learned scripting (I sat down to do so at least 3 times in my life) the problem is can see it's value, but I am always full with busy work and never get any bang for the buck in the first week and I notice 3 weeks later I am not still working on learning it. I did do Basic and Pascal in the eighties, HTML in the 2000's and that's it. It has always been easier for me to bull through something, for example I would sit and key all the studs flying into position. This was making my animations take too long to produce--doing something more visually interesting when maybe the script or budget can't support it.

A script that emulates key-framing the move multi-copy is one simple animation/script idea that would save time. But, path animation may be quite sufficient. Another would be a canned "exploded" view animation, where parts of an assembly all fly out to a certain distance, and then fly back. But alas, these are just those dreams that come as I hustle through a project.

 

Just a strange side question, did you ever make your own balloon? I sometimes wish I could make some sort of cool flying personal dirigible, but I am afraid of heights.

[¢hris £und]

Yea, it would be faster to animate it with the multi-copy, that is true.  As scripting is set up now, it wouldn't do what you'd want either.  At least not easily.  Hopefully, scripting will tie into the animation engine eventually.  I don't recall if the old FSL did so or not.  Outside of surface materials, anyway.

In my opinion, Python is easy enough to pick up to where it is worth it.  I still have some things to figure out before I start producing tutorials for it though.

 

I never made a personal HAB.  Though I have to admit, I thought about it.  Less of a dirigible, but a standard shape that I would harness into (no basket).  The guy I worked for did start out by making his own dirigible though.  He was one of like 10 certified pilots in the world, at the time)