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# 1 02-09-2004 , 12:16 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Australia
Posts: 50

growing vine leaves?

Hi there!

I have a problem where i need to grow leaves on a grape vine.

I have animated a leaf growing in size, unfurling etc.

then i chose my vine object, created omni particle emit from object, speed 0, rate at the amount of leaves i wanted.
I then selected the leaf, shift-clicked the particles, and chose instancer (replacement).
yay i have leaves and they grow nicely.

THE PROBLEM is, that they all grow at the exact same time as the original object, therefore leaves that appear as time progresses, appear at the growth size that the original leaf is AT THAT FRAME.

i need the leaves to appear at the start of the growth animation, but appear on the vine at the random intervals.
so it looks like some grow, then more, then more etc.

at the moment, it's "almost" good, just that I can't get the leaves to appear with a new animation per particle. they all animated at the same time.

i read in the help you can load in a bunch of different animated objects, like obj 1, then obj2, obj3 etc, but this would be a pain in the ass to layer so many 'frame' objects to create a smooth motion, especially if i wanted eg 5 or 6 leaf variations.

is there a way to create the efffect i want? ie using an animated object as a particle instance?

or a completely different method apart from particles?

no, i don't want to use maya paintfx.

thanks!!
Adam.