Unfold transition

#1

Hi here is a script to simulate an unfolding effect for the faces of a mesh… it separate the faces and place bones on them. The idea of using bones is from the amazing scripts by Emu, in fact you can animate the meshes unfolded and rigged with those scripts with this little tool.

There are two operators, first one to separate and rig the faces, the other is useful to animate bones, it will work here but also on an armature from the skin modifier or many other bones hierarchies.

Just added a Flipping Cards :stuck_out_tongue: option you can test with two sided materials… run both operators with this setting enabled.
Have fun, script is pretty slow so don’t try it on something with more than 2k faces.

2.79: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dwj89rqspqeuqum/unfold_transition.py?dl=1
2.80: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2suldwi5mg1rmrw/unfold_transition_280.py?dl=1

some tips:

  • first operator is destructive, will separate all faces and even if it can be called again later and will try to restore mesh, things like indices will be changed… if you need to manually restore the mesh just use ‘Remove Doubles’

  • see you can sort mesh elements with built in Blender’s operator -use F6 to be sure to sort vertex + edge + face- this allows more control on animation using the ‘Mesh Indices’ option, remember previous tip

  • second operator is not destructive, it will only animate bones, so try it safely with different settings

#2

My test.

#3

Perfect!! Thank you !!
Is it possible to make it work with object elements? Faces and elements?

#4

Atom now script will try to be smart and clean up the scene for you when repeating the set up operator -the one that runs on meshes, second one runs on armatures-

Try hidding timeline and it will play faster, but low poly objects looks better i think.

#5

Cool Script! thanks you :slight_smile:

#6

Is there a way to keep the mesh smooth shading?

#7

edges are split so it is not posible -unless we get the bmesh modifier-
you can script it but looks weird anyway: http://db.tt/HGu4wo8w

#8

Thanks!! That worked!!

#9

Super Great addon, but it keeps making my blender crash

This is my scene, if anyone can try render animation, i can render stills but after more or less 10 frames into the animation, blender crashes.

I’m using blender r60158 in OSX 10.8.4
on a 2.2 ghz intel core i7 mbp 8,3
with 8gb of ram.

need more info?

#10

@Looch, have you tried to render from command line? I see you are using motion blur, i had some problems rendering animation with MB directly from blender UI.

#11

worked fine here -at 50 samples- nice test btw: http://db.tt/8VDmGngQ
deformation motion blur is lacking yet for cycles

#12

Just rendered the entire animation from command line, at 300 samples. Its working here too.

#13

okay, so does that mean it is lack of memory?

#14

Could be! Have you tried to render from the command line? Also, as noted by liero, motion blur is not working (yet) with deformed objects, but still can be used with animated objects, and camera. Have you tried to disable motion blur?

#15

Very useful.
This could be an option of the build modifier (just dreaming…). But without bones… just face animation.
For smooth faces to work we need a modifier that remove doubles dynamically… I think that there’s an option in the new explode modifier from the demolition or bullet branch… can’t remember…
Liero, thank you very much.

#16

you’re welcome, I’ve just hidden the bones as they only slowed down the playback -they are on armature layer 2- see that it will animate from current frame now… also improved some things in code

#17

Great, gonna check out the new version, it’d be awesome if it would be in a modifier (or similar) so parameters could be dynamically adjustable… eitherway, i’m gonna try rendering it with motion blur off, I have no idea of how to render via command line!

#18

This is what i turned out… https://vimeo.com/75028493

#19

Thats cool!! Muito Legal!

#20

nice! I like it, and good to see this finally worked for you
will try to do some fixes to script on weekend… saludo!