Object Disappear/Appear

Support Animation and Rigging
1

Is there a way to make an object appear on one frame and then disappear on another so that it won’t be rendered or anything? If so, how?

Thanks. :smiley:

2

Animate its layer visibility as described on this wiki page.

Note: I found this by Googling “animate visibility site:wiki.blender.org”.

3

nadaklan,

There are 2 ways (that I know of) to make something disappear:

  1. Animating the alpha setting of the material - can be either slow or fast, but there are other materials that will allow it to be seen - reflectiveness and specularity for instance.

  2. Use an IPO curve to change the layer the object is on. You could render layer 1, and in the animation, change the layer that the object is on, say for instance to layer 2. This is not a gradual change, no fade or anything, just suddenly gone.

The layer IPO curve is available at the object level.

Best of Luck!

4

I may try that render layer thing. I’ve been using the alpha for the stuff I’ve been trying out lately, and it’s been kinda a pain. Maybe render layers will be better.

CD38, I’ll check that out later. The server seems to have a problem so it’s not showing up.

Thanks guys.

5

There is a third:
Render up to the point where the object is to dissapear using single frames as output.
Remove the object from the render by hiding it, moving it to another layer or simply deleting it.
Render the rest of the animation as single frames.
Use the Sequenceeditor to paste the frames together and render it out into a movie.
You could also do a fade this way making it seem as if the object dissapears slowly.

It is always a good idea to render animations on a per frame base and use sequencer or some external prog to composite them together later on.

6

nadaklan: To clarify: it’s just layers you animate, as in visibility layers. Render layers are used in the compositor.

Quick and dirty explanation while the Wiki is down. Say you want an object to vanish at frame 20. The object has been created on Layer 1. Go to frame 19. Select the object, then I-key->Layer. This sets a keyframe telling Blender “Up to this point, have this object on Layer 1”. Step to frame 20. With object still selected, M-key->2. This puts the object on Layer 2. Shift-click Layer 2 in the layer selector so the object is visible for now. Then I-key->Layer. This keyframe tells Blender “From this point, have this object on Layer 2.” That’s it. Make sure only layer 1 is selected when you render the animation, and the object will vanish at frame 20.

7

I couldn’t get this to work with 2.49b. Is there a new method?

8

the keyframe method in the layers doesn’t work in 2.5 isn’t? cause when I hit ‘I’ key doesn’t show any option for Layer.

9

Aw Jeez. THIS is the step I overlooked. Once the object is moved to a new layer, THAT’S when you have to shift-click the layer button and keyframe (I-key) the object’s layer property.

<light bulb!>

Thanks, CD38!!

10

Thanks! It really must be done from the properties it seems :smiley:

11

The other way without moving objects between layers is to keyframe the objects renderability on/off in the outliner wiindow (camera icon)

12

If you want the object to have a slow fade you could also animate the alpha properties > material in IPO window.

Just sayin’.

13

I finally figured out how to make an arrow appear and vanish in Blender 2.5.

I want a green arrow to appear then vanish in a couple of seconds.
This is done by messing with the ‘Transparency’ and ‘Specular’ buttons in the material.
We will be adding keyframes and animating the settings on these buttons.

Here is the setup:
Make your arrow, or any object, and gave it a solid material. In ‘Material’ make sure ‘Transparency’ is checked or this will not work.

The arrow starts out as invisible in frames 0 through 20.
Then the arrow appears from nothing in frames 20 through 30.
The arrow is visible and solid in frames 30 through 40.
The arrow vanishes to nothing in frames 40 through 50.

We’ll start by locking in when it is going to be visible and solid.

Get to frame 30 on the timeline then go back to the Material.
1. Right click on the button ‘Alpha: 1.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’
2. Right click on the button ‘Specular: 1.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’

Get to frame 40
1. Right click on ‘Alpha: 1.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’
2. Right click on ‘Specular: 1.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’

Now we’ll make it appear from nothing at the beginning.

Get to frame 10
1. Left click on ‘Alpha: 1.000’ and slide it down to ‘0.000’
2. Right click on ‘Alpha: 0.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’
3. Slide ‘Specular: 1.000’ down to ‘0.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’

Now we’ll make it vanish at the end.

Get to frame 50
1. Left click on ‘Alpha: 1.000’ and slide it down to ‘0.000’
2. Right click on ‘Alpha: 0.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’
3. Slide ‘Specular: 1.000’ down to ‘0.000’ and choose ‘insert keyframe’

That’s it, works like a charm.

14

Object Properties>Relations>hover over “Layers:” And press “I” key to insert this object on the desired (currently enabled) layer/layers. Move to new frame>mouse over 3D view>press “M” key to move to new layer>Object Properties>Relations>hover over “Layers:” And press “I” key to insert this object on the new layer/layers.

Objects will now pop onto and off of different layers.