Hi Gang. Doing a little R&D here in Action and I need to add an animated ribbon that is moving through my scene. I would usually use a sweep in Maya, but I was hoping to keep everything in Action for ease of use with change, and not having to use both programs. I recall when the 3D Path tool was first introduced, there was a hack for using type and scaling to “sweep” the geometry along the curve. Is that still the only method for something like this?
Any insight would be appreciated. Thanks.
Ugh, I wouldn’t predict that you’re going to have fun days ahead. 3D path in Action is not very easy to use. It needed one more cycle of development. I just 2d hack it instead.
Yeah, I’m seeing that very quickly. Too bad really, having everything in my batch setup would be so NICE. I think I’m heading back to Maya. I’m still going to try and texture and light in Action, but we’ll see.
Could you use a long thin plane input into Action, then deformed using a Deform mesh to give some animated ripples?
Or extended bicubic keyframing
Or use a 3dShape extruded out using the depth setting, then warped using the scale and rotation settings. I think you can use an open spline to extrude a flat shape.
Yeah, I would go somewhere between @GPM and @Lightningad and create a long extended bicubic strip that covers your general path. Instead of animating the ex-bicubic I would use a displacement map to add secondary details.
Maybe even add a deform node. You can use the deform node with a “Free” axis and animate its position along your strip. This would give you some more local control…
This is a good idea. Though I’ve never found Deform to be easy or good.
I built a bit of an Frankenstein solution. Houdini for the Sweep shape, exported as an FBX, then animated diffuse maps for the texture. Turns out the “Ribbon” shape was a lot more complex than just a flat plane, so I needed a full 3D modeler to get it done.
Thanks everyone.
Im one actuon id move it left to right or whatever then bend it in another action exetended bicubics to get the path.