Create a blooming flower?? Without paint effects?
 

Heyy I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for creating a flower bloom effect? I've seen the same tutorial all over the web of using paint effects but I don't like the look. I want to animate stylized flowers and vines growng, but other then character animation, I don't know too much about object animation (not that 'objects' move a lot haha). Would I have to rig it or could I use a specific deformer?? Help would be greatly appriciated!! Cheers!

i've made one with blend shapes before. i rigged the stem with a spline IK.

Oh wow good idea! How many different blend shapes did you make for it? 3ish?

yeah, about that.