Can I animate a curve ?

Technical Support Basics & Interface
1

Hello,

I made a cylinder and added a curve modifier to it. It deforms Ok, fine so far.

However I would like to animate this movement. But it has not been possible to edit the curve through time.
Editing the curve changes it throughout the movie.

I suppose it is the equivalent of trying to animate the editing of a meshe’s faces (or vertices, etc).
Which I have not been able to do either.

Can something like this be done, and how ?

Thanks in advance

Dimitris

2

You can add hooks to the curve and animate those.

In Curve edit mode, select a curve point, and press Ctrl+H. If you select the first option ‘Hook to New Object’, this will create an empty which controls the curve point.
There’s also the option to assign other objects as hook.

3

It works, great!

I suppose this is what hooks are for, right ?

Thanks a lot !
Dimitris

4

You could also use the Animall addon to directly keyframe the curve points without using hooks or you could give your curve shape keys and animate those

5

Animall addon way is much flexible.