I'm trying to animate an object, say a fist, punching through a solid.
The solid wouldn't shatter, it would curl outward from a center point.
I've tried googling for a tutorial, but no luck.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Re: Fist Punching Through Solid by Nicholas Toth on Sep 3, 2008 at 4:09:21 pm
Sounds like a great opportunity to use the puppet tool!
Kind of like if we punched through something with more elasticity, right? Like a bullet ripping through a piece of sheet metal? I'd break the piece apart in photoshop, make sure its completely seamless, and bring it into AE. Rig the pieces in AE so they bend when it is hit. You may also be able to use BEND IT, but I think the puppet tool would be the best. Don't forget you want to use some sort of false perspective.
Re: Fist Punching Through Solid by Larry S. Evans II on Sep 3, 2008 at 4:11:04 pm
You might take a look at the "page turn" tutorial at Videocopilot.net. That's the closest thing I've seen to what you are talking about. It's not the same effect, but it might give you something to start from. Be aware that sometimes their video servers are a bit slow on delivering the older tutorials (or they used to be).
If I understand you correctly, that sort of effect almost requires a true 3D approach. That is, you'd make a flat object in a 3D application, score it or tear it so that it would rip accordingly, and then animation the curling back of the edges. You could map an image or video onto this (if say, you want the fist to punch through a previous scene in the sequence) and then render it out with an alpha channel. Of course, this method is a lot more complicated (and expensive) than trying a 2D simulation, but it would look a lot more realistic.
Larry S. Evans II
Executive Producer
Digital I Productions
Re: Fist Punching Through Solid by Nicholas Toth on Sep 3, 2008 at 6:21:45 pm
Good point Larry.
I think that doing it in 3d would also save A LOT of time. If you were to do it in Cinema 4d, you could just use the Cloth sim w/Mocha, and you could have that thing torn in a matter of seconds. Tweak it, render it out.
Re: Fist Punching Through Solid by Brad Houshour on Sep 3, 2008 at 11:35:40 pm
Great thanks. I've got Cinema4d, and work at an intermediate level.
I'm not terribly familiar with the Cloth sim, but I think I can do some tutorials and get a feel for it.
The puppet tool is an interesting idea as well.
I played around with the page turn approach and it didn't really turn out that well.
I think I'll try the C4D route.
