Virus assembly animation [closed]

Hi,

We’re a newly launched start-up doing biological simulations, in order to assess the efficacy of a novel class of drugs. We need an animation showing how a virus capsid assembles. I have already bought this static model of a norovirus from turbosquid:

https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-norovirus-norwalk-virus-1354514

The model already has 60 sub-components (each subcomponent has 3 proteins each). We need to show how the proteins come together one-by-one to create the full virus particle. To achieve this, it’s easier to start from the full virus and simulate a dis-assembly => and then run the animation backwards. So you start with the full virus capsid, and take each protein one by one (60 in total) and start diffusing them through a random walk in the 3D space. Then you put together the movie in reverse, to show assembly!
Our model has two views: ribbon and surface.

The virus has two types of models: ribbon and surface. The animation will use the ribbon model throughout, and only overlay the surface at the end, for the final 5 seconds. The entire animation should be for 30-40 seconds.

The model has 6 million polygons, and was natively done in Maya 2017, but we also have .FBX and .OBJ, so can be imported into Blender, 3ds Max, etc … Below is a screenshot of the model loaded in Blender, showing the 60 sub-components.

An important aspect of the animation is that the capsid should grow from a core nucleus, like in the image below. So new proteins are only added on the periphery of the partial capsule.

image

Let me know if you can help. I would really appreciate it. Many thanks!

3 Likes

is the model rigged?

If I understood correctly, there are 60 “sets” of ribbons, each set consisting of 3 proteins. Does each “protein structure” need to deform in some way during the animation, or they just need to move relative to each other?

Asuming they do not need to deform, do they need to move relative to the other 2 proteins in their corresponding “set”? If not, each set of 3 proteins would move as a non-deformable block.

This work has been done, thank you all!