The ring needs to start out as basically nothing, then revolve around to reveal a ring. My first attempt was to use the taper bevel option on a curve, but there are a lot of people involved in this project and the designer will have a pissy fit if I present a ring with that ugly pointy tip that a taper based solution presents.
I need a flat plane that reveals the ring over time.
My second attempt was to use the shrinkwrap modifer in projection mode, but that only works if you are revealing something along a single axis. The ring requires 2 axis for revealing.
I am stumped at this point. I thought Blender would be able to do this basic 3D task.:spin:
@Senshi: Thanks for the idea, I had not thought about just animating a texture instead of the mesh. Empties can not have textures applied, can you describe a bit more about how to achieve this animated blend texture?
I was able to come up with an armature based animated mesh solution by modifying another example file. But my next question (Which has remained unanswered on the forum) is how would I duplicate this setup/rig so that I can have multiple glass rings in motion each with their own animation and material?
Without the ability to duplicate an armature, I guess I’ll have to go old school.
Here is another revision, not sure why I did not think of this first where the ScaleX is simply animated from 0 to 1. Then a curve modifier is added. This causes it to grow along the curve. Now I can duplicate it much easier and manage multiple animations by simply having a different scale IPO for each copy.
