Making an object appear along an axis
 

Quite a difficult thing to describe.
I've modeled a chair for some one and i want to show the sizes and dimension of it in an interestng way. I thought it would be cool to have the object start as a plane (the side profile almost like the letter h), then i want this plane to extrude to the other side revealing the chair in its entirety. How would someone go about doing this? A simple scale out wont do, as it doesn't give the impression of the chair being revealed.

I tried putting the chair in a spherical environment with a green 'surface shader'. I then made another plane much bigger than the chair (i assigned the same green shader) and keyed the plane moving from one side of the object to the other. Because of the nature of surface shaders this has given me the impression i want. However it's rubbish because you don't see any shadows and the reflections are the same.

If anyone knows the correct way to achieve this it would greatly be appreciated.
Mario

you could try using a transparency ramp to reveal it.

Thats a good idea. I've just had a go and i'm getting some irregularities. random parts of my object are now transparent while others aren't. I think it's because the transparency works of the UV's. My object has a blinn shader and has not been uv mapped. Could this be why?

By doing a projection map of my object first and then applying the ramp I am now getting closer to my idea. It looks very good but different. By using a black and white transparency ramp you are not completely hiding the object. It's now a half glass / half shaded object that still casts shadows. Does anyone have any work arounds?

use the same ramp for the specularity as you have for the transparency.

(just plug it into the specular colour too.)

thank you that worked a charm although i needed to reverse the ramp for the spec.