I saw a tutorial by sardi pax once where he did something similar with the ivy addon. What i need is it to look more angular but be wrapped around a sphere
One way is to trace it and turn those into a mesh, then UV unwrap those so the pulses can go along them. If the pulses can’t go diagonally, then the UV’s should be straightened to go along the chosen axis. If the pulses need to follow each branch exactly at a junction and follow each branch lengthwise, then the UV positions need to also match
Didn’t do that all the way here, nor very carefully, but
the line that creates the effect between diffuse and emission scans the V (Y) axis. Straightening the UV’s and aligning the junctions on the UV’s as they’re in the mesh should make it work.
Material setup is quite easy. First separating the axes from the UV coordinates, the next two math nodes offset the values by first flipping the offset to switch the direction and value range, then subtracting a keyframed value (0 = bottom, 1 = top). Color ramp makes the line gradient, and then that is used to mix the shaders.
wow, really cool! I’m going to have to study this to see exactly what you did. I know you explained it and i’m not gonna lie, it went above my head. You’ve given me a good start both of you, thanks very much