Dupliframes , Make them appear on by one ?

Hi , i want to make this animation where , some cubes start to appear one by one .
The effect is the same as (in the blend file i attach ), if you press the Dup end and Dup start bottons.

One by one the cubes go appearing , but ,this cannot be animated in blender.

So how could i do this ?
http://uploader.polorix.net//files/249/path%20animation.blend

Well, I don’t understand what you blend file is supposed to do, but I think that you could try to use layers in your animation to make your cubes appear.
Hide your objects on a layer, and change the layer with a keyframe when you want the object to appear… or disappear (look a t the Layer Ipo).

well , if you press the dup sta and dup end bottons , you can see how they appear , one by one , or desapear .
That is the effect i want to get. cubes appearing and disappearing after lets say one second , and forming a line , fllowing a path.

The technic you mention is not going to work becuse there are many more cubes tah layers. about 60 or so.

Any other ideas ?

You could still use layers. All the invisible ones go on one hidden layer and you move them to a visible layer as you need them (Layer can be keyed in IPO>Object window or with I-key in 3D window). If you ever saw my “Torn” animation (little guy miming to Natalie Imbruglia song) - this is how I made the magic balls appear.

So, you could use dupliframes to make the copies where you want them on Layer 20 - then make each copy an object (“make real” or whatever it is you do with dupliframes to make them not copies any more?). You will need to key them to Layer 20 to start. Then select each one and on the appropriate frame, move it to Layer 1 (or whatever you want) and key Layer again. Do that 60 times on different frames (I’m sure you could do it once then make the IPOs single user and offset each curve but that would probably take even longer). Then hide layer 20. Then animate and sit back in wonderment at your own greatness :slight_smile:

For even more amazingment, you could also key the alpha value of each object so it can change layers then appear slowly.

I’m sure there’s another way that’s been discussed here a long time ago but if you’re in a hurry and can’t find another solution, that will get you through.

try using the array modifier with a curve setting the number of duplicates to the curve length

check out this video:

http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/features/feature-videos/?video=modifier_stack

the layer switch is simplest, but if you stubbornly refuse to do that you can animate the alpha of the material as well to have them jump or phase in.

Thank you all.
i’ll try to make both ways to see whats the best.