UnMeshify or Swap with option?

Hi All,

I have a new empty scene with a curve, a circle and a line.

The circle is the bevel object of the curve. The line is the taper object of the curve.

Ok, so I have a beveled tapered curve. Now I convert the curve to a mesh and apply a build modifier to animate the curve growing over time.

Cool, I like it so I duplicate it about 20 times and arrange them on a grid.

Ok, I show the animation to the client and they like the direction it is going, however, they want the arc of the curve a little less.

Boo hoo…
Now if I were in 3DSMax, this would be no problem, I could adjust the single curve of the instanced object and all object would change, but alas, I am using Blender and I now am faced with the sad fact that I have to remodel, reanimate and re-layout the entire grid.

Is there anyway around this?

In flash, I can swap a movie clip with another clip. Does this kind of functionality exist at the mesh level in Blender? Could I swap a new mesh with the existing mesh so I did not have to remodel everything?

Is there a better way to construct this scene so I could have a “tweakable” curved object with a build modifer?

I am having trouble visualizing your layout. But, can’t you use dupliverts to create the 20 duplicates of your original mesh? as for fixing the curve on the object, you could try adding a lattice modifier to it and using the lattice to bend the object to the shape you want. Sorry, if I am off base with this, my brain is not working up to par today.

I have never tried dupliverts. I would need to be able to scale, rotate and position each duplicate individually. I thought duplivert was like a scatter across another mesh function?

Anyway, I bit the bullet and just did it again.

I have attached my WIP. The red lines on the map are the objects in question.

“No, do it again…How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat”

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