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I'd like to animate slicing through a object with a skin and interior. A simple example would be animating taking thin slices from a watermelon similar this:

enter image description here

While this is relatively easy when using simple geometry, it still required a lot of setup. This animation was built using boolean modifiers. There is a sphere for the exterior skin, a sphere for the interior, and two cubes used to create the slices by boolean intersections with the spheres. The sphere for the skin is slightly larger than the interior sphere. The cube for the skin is slightly offset from the cube for the interior. The setup is shown below,

This approach does not scale well when using more complex geometry or when using lots of objects.

I would like to scale this effect to include dozens or hundreds of objects.

Is there a simpler way to create and animate objects with skins and different interiors?

The blend file:

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    $\begingroup$ See if Cutting with Boolean Modifiers or How can I easily animate cutaway views on multiple objects? answers your question. $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 2:52
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks. Those are great suggestions for different approaches to slicing. However, I was hoping that there might be a way to use modifiers or shaders to accomplish the result in the animation with less setup. $\endgroup$
    – Ed Tate
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 4:25
  • $\begingroup$ Best modeling of slicing, are you help me with video tutorial how to create this (.blend) $\endgroup$
    – saded
    Commented Aug 25, 2017 at 13:45

1 Answer 1

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Depending on what you want your final outcome to look like you may not need to do anything more then a simple boolean modifier.

Here is a capsule with nothing more then a boolean modifier set to difference, and a animated cube as the target.
animated gif

You can see it is possible to get a different material for where the boolean cuts the object. Here is how.

  1. Add a second material slot to the object with the boolean modifier (this is the material you want for the "inside" of your object).
    material slot settings
  2. The target object (the object that does the cutting) also needs to have the same material.

That's all it takes to get a different material where the boolean modifier has cut.

You can read in further detail about how the Boolean modifier handles materials in the blender manual.

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    $\begingroup$ That is exactly what was needed. Tested and works like a charm! This eliminated half of the geometry in the scene and simplified setup. Thanks. $\endgroup$
    – Ed Tate
    Commented Nov 27, 2015 at 21:36
  • $\begingroup$ David, how did you make this gif? $\endgroup$
    – Qutorial
    Commented Nov 28, 2015 at 2:52
  • $\begingroup$ @Qutorial just wrote all about it on the meta, let me know if there is anything I should add. $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Nov 28, 2015 at 5:58
  • $\begingroup$ Wow! Saved me a ton of work! $\endgroup$
    – Anson Savage
    Commented Jan 7, 2018 at 6:34
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    $\begingroup$ @MicroMachine that is simple. no material needed, just set the cube to not render (camera icon in the outliner). $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Dec 13, 2018 at 23:09

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