Animating a building constructing

[phil-vaughan]

Hi there,

does anyone here know of any plug-ins to automate
the animation of a building constructing? I have seen
a few for 3ds but not come across any for Maya.

Any pointers much appreciated!

cheers!

[joojaa]

does anyone here know of any plug-ins to automate
the animation of a building constructing?

Err? How would that work then, thet would mean you would know how the building is constructed and have all the elements in the building to begin with*. So even if you had a plug youd still need to put the effort for all the pieces.

Now animating pieces comming in and out fo existence is NOT actually worth a plugin, in maya terms. I mean in max you need a plugin for everything you do. But not in maya. The package of maya is just so much more robust, because its made out of more opaque containers.

So any demo on the actuall effect you want? i meani can in second think of hundreds of ways of doing this that all look different. So which one are you after.

*now IF you actually have plugin like that in max, that dont need this input, then your kindof selling it to the worng crowd. I mean every building comppany in the world would LOVE to have one that actually automated this, wouldnt need any engineers anymore.

[phil-vaughan]

Ok, something like this:

This was done in Max using morph targets, I assume the same result
cannot be achieved with blend shapes in Maya??

[phil-vaughan]

It may be useful to know that I am building the construction in modules,
the final building split into layers/pieces so I can work backwards, if you like,
so i am not expecting Maya to 'magic' the buidings into existence
I just want to avoid keyframing every part of the build up....

[phil-vaughan]

Another excellent example:

[joojaa]

Ok not so hard. just a bit of work. The key to this is to recognize that you have 3 or 4 different kinds of animation elements.

I just want to avoid keyframing every part of the build up....

Well see the thing is even a plugin kindof keyfreames everything.

Amway you make things into functional groups for example the effect in the last video at 0.34 where the pillars and roofspilars come into existence. Very easy to do place the roof parts pivts in the right place select all the relevant parts in one go, rotate them straight (now if you select many things in maya and rotate the object in local mode each rotates in sync, but along its own axis), set key at straight and then at the end position (better yet do it in reverse), now you offcourse have parented theese to pilars hit arrow down key and move them local down key. Now the group may have hundreds of thousands of keys but its still just one operation. (work time estimated 20 seconds)

Ok now then you need s script that offsets theese keys sligtly randomly in time, no biggie to write but i have a examination tomorrow so im going to go and read (work time 3 minutes can be reused). I could do a demo but no time. when i have about 30 minutes to spare maybe. But im very busy.*

Same for other elements just get the gimic going all in sync then just offset the keyframes in time slightly to randomize the effect. Rince and repeat, each group takes after initial investements about 20-120 seconds per group. Be sure to set the objects local space when you build them this will make it way easier.

*offcourse if you must do this and tweak later you COULD make one set of keys for one pilar and then spread the same thing around the other parts witha  wee bit of expression magic but why bother.

[phil-vaughan]

Ok, thanks,

I think a combination of these techniques will work,
was possibly thinking of putting some lattice deformers
in there, to help grow some of the elements, and the
grouping of rotating elements should help automate
some of the work. If you come up with an offset script
let me know!

cheers!