flower growth animation

I am attempting to make a flower grow. I was curious if there was some way to do the animation in blender, rather then render frame for frame and use flash to put it into time. I have the complete flower modelled, and I was going to move points and scale objects to grow backwards from the complete model, but this is extremely time consuming. I have searched tutorials, and as of now, it seems as though my only options are either shape keys, or applying armatures. I think too detailed for armatures, and you cannot add or erase any vertices using shape keys. Any suggestions or tutorials out there???

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You could use a Curve or Lattice Modifier, but easiest of all will be a two-bone Armature. Assign two Vertex Groups to your plant; Bone.001 for your plant and Bone.002 for the flower. Scale both bones to zero or nearly zero in Pose mode (if your Vertex Groups work this will shrink the plant to nothing). Hit I with Bone.001 selected and choose Size. Move 50 (or whatever) frames forward, scale that bone to size and hit I, Size again. Select Bone.002, hit I, Size, move forward some frames and scale the flower up, hit I, Size. Done. Shft-LeftArrow and Alt-A.

If you want to get fancy you can put a Bone on each leaf, the stem and the flower and animate each seperately.

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I’ve actually done this before… I used shape keys.

but this is extremely time consuming.

It sure is, but will be worth it. Also remember to set a shape key before you enter AND exit edit mode. I’ve actually had to redo my 5 hour work just because I forgot to set a shape key before exiting edit mode. If you don’t set the shape key during edit mode… and go into the object mode it will modify the currently selected shape key.