Hi all!
Ok, I might be blind, or half asleep, or something, but I haven't been able to get mesh deformation in an animation to work in blender 2.4 on Windows XP. All I want to do is move a few vertices of a cube, but I haven't been able to make anything happen. Is there a tutorial somewhere, or can anybody shed some light on this dillema. I have tried the wiki articles and the current documentation on blender.org. Thanks for any help!
-wastvedt
Try this:
Go to object mode and bring up the mesh editing buttons
Find the “Shapes” tab
Add a new shape key (as a base “Before the change” mesh)
Add a second shape key
With the second key active, go back to mesh edit mode (tab) and move the verticies to their new location
Back to object mode (tab)
Swtch to a view with an action editor and you’ll see a line that says “Sliders<”
Click this to open the sliders and you’ll see one matching the key you created
Set this slider to 0 - You’ll see a keyframe marker in the line
Go to the last frame in the movement of the vertecies and set the slider to 1 - You’ll see another keyframe marker.
That aught to do it!
Thanks!
It worked like a charm! I do have a couple more questions though. In the action editor there are menu options to change the extrapolation type and the handle type, but nothing seems to happen when I change these. What’s up with that? 
Also, is there a way to use dupliframes, or something else that does the same thing, so that it reflects the change in shape from the shape keys? Thanks for any help!
-wastvedt
Extrapolation type is about what happens after the last and before the first keyframe… Do the verticees keep moving? Do they stey put? does the animation cycle around? etc.
Try making the keyframe ½ way through the animation instead of at the end and play with the extrapolation settings to see what happens after the keyframe.
Handle type is about how the animation passes the keyframe as it heads for the next. In a 2 keyframe animation, you won’t notice much difference between handle types, but if you insert a few more, you’ll be able to see the difference.
These properties are from a feature called “Interpolation” (Refered to in the forum as “IPOs”. It’s all about how parameters change over time.
Have a look around here at Elysiun and the Blender documentation for more info in IPO.
Cheers.
Thanks for helping out a poor newbie!
Sorry, I guess I gave the wrong impression. I know how extrapolation and handles work, I just didn’t see anything happen in the window after I changed one of these properties. Is there a visual curve for shape keys like there is for IPOs? Thanks again!
-wastvedt
In the action editor there are menu options to change the extrapolation type and the handle type, but nothing seems to happen when I change these.
It’s left over garbage from the IPO window. The only one that works from the Action Editor is Handles if you have the handles selected in Edit mode in the IPO window (click in the AE and it’ll change in the IPO E).
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Thanks for the info!
Just one more question, I think. Can I make the changes that the shape keys create show up in the dupliframes option? So if I move a vertice using a shape key, the objects created by the dupliframes function will all have that vertice in a different position according to what the object looks like in the animation.
I’m not sure if I’m making any sense, so let me know if you’re, understandably, befudled.
Thanks,
-wastvedt
I’m not sure which mesh you’re deforming for this question:
a) The mesh that controls the positions of the duplicated objects.
b) The mesh that controls what each duplicated object looks like.
I’m not sure which mesh you’re deforming for this question:
a) The mesh that controls the positions of the duplicated objects.
b) The mesh that controls what each duplicated object looks like.
Sorry, I’m not talking about dupliverts (at least I think that’s what it’s called). I was thinking of the button called dupliframes, also in the animation settings panel. It copies the object at a given interval throughout the animation. The problem is those copies (of the animated object), don’t change to reflect shape key deformations. Mabye that’s a little more clear, hope it helps.
Thanks,
-wastvedt
Unfortunately Dupliframes shows all (100 by default) frames from frame 1 thru to the end, so all instances of the dupli object will morph equally according to the framerate of the ShapeKeys.
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