Animation Test: Animated Metageometry

[DigiLusionist]

I'm experimenting with endomorphs to animate metaballs.

Anyone know if there is a way to get metageometry in different layers to interact the way they do when in the same layer and morphed?

[CAClark]

No idea on that question, neat animation though :)

Cheers

Craig

[DigiLusionist]

Thanks. I want to see if I can create the same effect I get from hypervoxels, only faster by using metaballs. The speed up is there, but the metaballs have a tendency to become jaggy or disappear as they are morphing.

Plus, I can't have the metaballs in one layer glom onto the metaballs in another layer.

So, overall, the experiment is at a standstill...

[riki]

How did you get the metaballs to animate? I tried experimenting with endomorphs but couldn't get it to work even with everything on the one layer. using Morph Mixer, but no luck.

[DigiLusionist]

Riki,

I started by creating an array of metaballs on one layer. Then, I created an endomorph like META.twist, and used the twist tool in one viewport to twist the position of the arrayed metaballs. I repeated this process for a number of endomorphs.

In Layout, I set the Subdivision Order to last (not sure if this is necessary, just habit), and activated MorphMixer to animate at different frames. That's what I did.

[riki]

Hi thanks for that, I was up til 4 last night searching through the the old forums to see if I could find the answer. For some reason if I set the Sub Division order to last it won't render HV but set it to 'After Deformation' and it seems to work ok.

Here's a couple of quick tests the second mov file is only 12 frames but gives an idea.

http://www.suture.net/files/0014.mov (212k)

http://www.suture.net/files/0015.mov (240k)

[DigiLusionist]

When I create the metaballs, I size them to about twice their original size. I set the Metaball resolution to 20-25. This way, they animate smoother than if I used the smaller metaballs.

Try that.

[riki]

Thanks I'll give that a go, I'm sure it must be possible to achive some good results with this.