Animate bevel in editing mode

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1

Hi,

I’m trying to animate a rectangle that needs to have rounded edges and then turn into a circle. I cannot use a bevel modifier because it is not exportable to an .fbx file.

I noticed that in edit mode it is not possible to animate.

I have tried shape keys but the bevel is not detected.

Can anyone help me with this? Or am I doing something wrong? Thank you.

Look at the images below:

chrome_JkCCJvNj2I
chrome_JkCCJvNj2I706×853 118 KB

P.S.
AnimAll plugin also not animate bevel…

2

You could try this.

  • Create the bevel in edit mode the way that you would want it to look when you animate into it.
  • Then create a shape-key where all the points from the bevel have been scaled to zero into the same position as the original single point.

Unbevel.blend (1020.7 KB)

Depending on how this will be used in the actual scene, it may mess with the final mesh. But an approach similar to this may do what you need.

1 Like
3

Your .blend file work as expected.

Unfortunately I’m not be able to reproduce your steps.

Can you, please, riproduce your steps more analytically.

Thanks for your support!

4
  • Add a plane, and select the vertex that you want to bevel.
  • Set the cursor to that position to help with the shape key later. (Shift+S Cursor to Selected)
  • Bevel the vertex as you like.
  • Come out of edit mode, and create a new shape key.
  • Set the shape key value to 1, and go back into edit mode.
  • Set the Transform Pivot Point to 3D Cursor, select the points made by the bevel, and scale them to zero (S 0 Enter).

image
image716×390 40.5 KB

  • Come out of edit mode, and the shape key should blend between the scaled, and beveled points.
5

Here’s an example that turns a round-corner rectangle into a circle - which is what you originally described.

Circle.blend (1023.4 KB)

If you enable the addon Mesh: LoopTools you get the option in edit mode to turn a selection of points into a circle. A new Edit tab will appear on the left panel, that has a few useful editing tools.

In that example, I also rotated the circle by 45 degress, so the blend from round-rect to circle looked smoother.

6

Oh, yes now I managed to work with that…

7

Ehi, this is amazing. This is what I’m trying to make as a final result.

If you can, just another help: if I try to cut the circle into a semi-circle than the shape key show this:

blender_CUPNsqTtbt
blender_CUPNsqTtbt1282×691 65.1 KB

Some advise on how to get a correct semi-rectangle instead?

8

Shape keys work by moving the original points on the mesh. It’s best not to do too much editing after you’ve created the shape key.

The aim is to make sure that you have enough points in your starting mesh, so that when you make a shape key, it has the geometry it needs for the final shape.

After a change like that to the starting mesh, you’ll need to delete, and recreate the shape key based on the new vertex count.

Do you have an example of how you want the two shapes to look?
A ‘before and after’ of what you want to start with, and blend into?

9

Here it what I’d like to have by the blend animation:

chrome_ePnzMhmfUE
chrome_ePnzMhmfUE709×714 47 KB

10

Here’s a go at that.

I added a circle that had the same number of points in it’s half to match those from the bevel - this is for a template to snap the rectangle points to in the shape key. I sub-divided the top edge of the rectangle to get the number of points to match.

For the shape key, I turned on vertex snapping, then moved the rectangle’s points to snap to the circle object. You can delete the circle when you’re done.

SemiCircle.blend (1.0 MB)

2 Likes
11

That’s exactly what I was looking for. Your help was really valuable. Thank you again.

P.S.
I hope I can get that result on my own… reading your directions… at least I learn something else :slight_smile:

1 Like