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I an trying to create a 10 second animation of an opening paper fan which would look similar to that depicted in the image (C4D, apologies, couldn't find any blender images related to this exact animation.)

Would I use one mesh, cut it with the knife and rig it up with an armature or...?

Any help would be great
example paper fan object

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    $\begingroup$ The answers to this paper folding question may help you. $\endgroup$
    – David
    Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 14:55
  • $\begingroup$ I am totally new to blender this link is totally over my head. It looks really helpful but I am a total beginner. Thanks for posting it though :) $\endgroup$
    – Richard Forrest
    Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 15:07

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Here's one to try out. The base is a Plane with one vertical cut [CTRLR] and the lower vertices merged [ALTM]. It is shaped to approximate one fold of the fan. Hooks are added to the outer vertices by selecting them in Edit mode and pressing CTRLH. Once back in Object mode the hooks can be (shift) selected and moved down on the Z-Axis or scaled towards each other to create the fold.

Add Hooks

You can later animate the Location by pressing CTRLI. The single fold can be duplicated with an array modifier using a new empty as the centre.

Empty array rotation

The centre empty rotation can also be animated with CTRLI to match the timing of the Hook movement. Of course it is cheating and if you look too closely they might not match perfectly..

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Cool solution man! I thought to use bones, but this one is much faster and smarter I guess. $\endgroup$
    – Paul Gonet
    Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 22:03
  • $\begingroup$ Wow this looks fantastic! Thanks a mill :) $\endgroup$
    – Richard Forrest
    Commented Sep 3, 2016 at 23:31

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