Partial Path Extrusion

Coding Python Support
1

I have no Python background, but I saw this ILM guy perform a partial path extrusion in Maya (and I learned). I wanted to do it in Blender, but I don’t think its possible- so I wonder if anyone knows how to script that, or point me in the right direction for accessing the proper commands.
Basically, it would work off of the [evaluation time] and extrude the path only up to the current time. Kinda like a ribbon growth. This way you could animate the extrusion. I guess it would be called as a linked object script??

I know the other ways- but this seems a whole lot simpler for clean growth effect.
Any thoughts on how to build it would be great- mocking it up would be better! But I would like to know how its working also…

2

Here is what I’m referring to:


http://www.stephenglover.info/animate-an-extrusion-along-a-curve-in-maya/

and… I found this Bevel script (non-secure):
https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-extensions/contrib/py/scripts/addons/mesh_bevel/init.py

3

Have a look hier http://www.petergragert.info/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/BlenderPicsPKHG/12Jun2011, rotoscoping used :wink:

4

Rotoscoping is clever, but it definitely would be easier to build it from a script. How would I access the path length data in a path? Would I have to perform the extrude algorithm, or simply hack the process to stop before it completes the extrude based upon frame number?