Bake Dupliverts Animation

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Hi everyone,

I’m sure there’s a simple solution to this, but can you bake duplivert animations? At least I think that’s the solution I’m after.

I have a plane and I subdivided it so there are 100 vertices
I have a cube and parent it to the plane
On the plane I assign Duplication > Verts so I have 100 cubes
I then apply a Wave modifier to the plane
I now have dancing cubes!

However, this is just the beginning of how I want to change and edit the cubes. I want to be able to modify and edit the cubes as individual objects, based on the initial wave animation, but if I hit Crtl + Shift + a I lose all animation on the cubes. I can’t bake them individually because they’re dupliverts.

Any suggestions? All the data is there in the animation I just need to separate it out into individual objects

Thanks
Nexus6

2

There used to be a “Make Duplicates Real” check box or in the menu, not sure what version your using, but look for that.

3

Hi ajcdfin,

Thanks for your response and suggestion. Yes, the “Make Duplicates Real” option is still there but this is the Ctrl + Shift + a option I mentioned, which means I lose all animation data. I’m sure there’s some other option available somewhere… :?..

4

Not sure if this is what you want, but. Here is how I do a similar thing. After i assign the duplication, select all the items and make them real. Then Select all of them again and parent them to the plane using Vertex. Now assign the wave. Each object can now be animated as an individual and you still have the wave.

5

Hi stilltrying,

Perfect! Thanks so much. I knew there would be a simple solution. This is exactly what I needed. So simple

6

I learned an additional tip while trying this: if you’re parenting a collection of objects to an Empty, and then parenting the Empty to Vertex (on the wave object), you will want to parent them carefully in a logical order, or else the parts will spread and separate as the wave effect moves them (or their parents).

For example, I made a desk calendar model, with metal loops and a cube. The metal loops must be parented to the cube, not the Empty. Otherwise, they won’t stay in place, relative to the cube. Parent the cube to the Empty, then parent the Empty to Vertex on your wavy parent object.