growing a vine/ tree
by nicola cullen
on
Sep 18, 2008 at 7:14:26 pm
Hi there,
I'm super new to cinema and I'm trying to find the best way to animate a growing vine/ tree branch similar to the way 3d stroke works in ae? I've tried animating the growth of a sweep nurbs, but im wondering how to have the end scale of the vine always be pointy, so that it simulates a more organic looking growth? Is this possible in cinema?
Re: growing a vine/ tree by randy johnson on Sep 18, 2008 at 7:38:48 pm
You can adjust the shape using the spline inside the sweepnurbs details tab. To keep a pointy end use a fillet cap on the sweepnurbs and just play with the settings to get the right size point.
Re: growing a vine/ tree by nicola cullen on Sep 18, 2008 at 8:29:30 pm
Hi Randy,
Thanks for that... I've just had a play around with it, and I can get the end kinda rounded using a half circle fillet cap, but I really need to keep the taper on the front end of the vine so it looks like its growing. Is there any way of doing this??
Re: growing a vine/ tree by louis marino on Sep 18, 2008 at 11:18:04 pm
I'd recommend using spline wrap, which is a feature of mograph (if you have it). The way it works is kind of cleverer than sweep nurbs and it's easier to animate with the tapered end.
Make a cylinder, click on mograph>spline wrap. Drop the spline wrap inside the cylinder. Click on spline wrap, and in the attributes window, look at the object tab. There should be a think saying •Spline. Drop the spline you want to grow in there. Then further down in the object tab of spline wrap, use the size controls to draw the shape of the taper.Then further up use the From and To sliders to grow it.
I might be wrong but I think in sweep nurbs if you create a taper, when you grow the spline, it will start off thick, and then end thin, rather than always having a tapered end. Animating the taper shape is the only way to get round it I think…?
Re: growing a vine/ tree by Adam Trachtenberg on Sep 19, 2008 at 10:33:25 pm
It's possible to do by animating the Scale spline along with End Growth, but kind of tricky if you need the exact same end shape all the way through.
If you have MoGraph you can use the spline wrap. Key is to select End Mode>Clamp in the spline wrap properties. That won't give you a 100% same taper the whole way either, but it's closer to what you want than a regular sweep.
