grow animation

[titu_mia]

hello everyone , I am new to maya animation, worked a lot in 3ds max, what I want to know how can I animate a building growing up from the soil. In max I can do it with the slice effect modifier but what to do in maya . anybody can help. :confused:

[ragecgi]

Well, there is the Cut Faces tool, but as Maya is not a solid-modeler the revealed objects will be hollow.
Maybe a more skilled modeler in the modeling threads can help you determine if I am wrong, and there is some ability to in essence "Cap" the hole:)

Select your poly object(s), then in the Polygons menu set choose:

Edit Mesh > Cut Faces Tool > Option box.
In the options for this tool, make sure the checkbox at the bottm for "Delete Cut Faces" is checked ON.
Leave everything else default.

Then click in any of your viewports and hold your mouse down while you position the line that appears to help you visualize your cut angle.
(This can be changed later if needed)

Then, to animate the slice over time:

Select your object(s), and in the channel box INPUT area click on the polyCut# node to expand its' attributes.
Key any of the following 3 attributes to animate your slice:
Cut Plane Center X, Y, or Z.

Also in the attributes are Cut Plane Rotate X, Y, and Z to better help you tweak the exact angle you would like for your cut.

NOTE that everything is animatable so you have TONS of control over the whole process:)

Good luck!

[darthrith]

Oh god you have no idea how long I've been looking for this. I've been using the tool for modeling all this while and I didn't realize that it could be used in animating this way. Thanks so much, ragecgi!

[ctbram]

The alternate method that will solve the hole issue is to create a large cube (call this the cutter), do a boolean difference between your obj and the cutter.

After the boolean operate the cutter and the obj nodes are still in the outliner and can be keyframed. You can move, scale, and rotate them.

Below I create a sphere (the obj to be cut), and a cube (the cutter) and then do a boolean difference. Note they do not intersect at all to begin. This is important as if you start out with an intersection you can get artifacts and odd behavior if you if pull the cutter out of the obj.

Then I select the cutter from the outliner switch the move mode (w-key) to local and you can see the boolean is updated in real time and the hole that you'd get using the cut method is filled.

http://youtu.be/Mas3zm5U214

[daverave]

Thats a nice trick there Rick works on my maya 2009.............dave