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I have several Parent objects that each have a lot of child objects. I need to key frame showing/hiding the various different stacks of objects at different points without it becoming too tedious. Ideally, i'd like it if I could set my child objects to share the show/hidden status of the parent object. Is this possible?

Alternatively, is there a way to keyframe the show/hide of a whole selection of objects at once?

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  • $\begingroup$ I think, easiest way to do this - scale parent down to 0 in one frame. $\endgroup$ – Crantisz Mar 20 '18 at 7:49
  • $\begingroup$ As a comment, as I've no idea how it was done. I've seen something like that done through drivers. Alternatively, have one .blend for the object groups (each parent with its children as a group), and a second .blend for the animation, where you link to the groups in your first .blend (used as a library)? $\endgroup$ – remco Mar 20 '18 at 8:13
  • $\begingroup$ This is a render time consideration, is that correct? $\endgroup$ – atomicbezierslinger Mar 20 '18 at 9:16
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EDIT, much better way to do this using properties

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/147144/15543

https://blender.stackexchange.com/a/197072/15543 answer below is for versions prior 2.8 with the use self option available. Also not a recommended way to use driver system.

Fudge the driver system

Firstly we'll set up a custom driver that sets a property of all children recursively to the value of the parent.

import bpy

def traverse_tree(t):
    yield t
    for child in t.children:
        yield from traverse_tree(child)

def set_children(obj, prop):
    val = getattr(obj, prop, None)
    if val is not None:
        for c in traverse_tree(obj): 
            setattr(c, prop, val)       
    return val    

bpy.app.driver_namespace["setchildprops"] = set_children

Now we can add a driver to a custom property on the same object as the property we wish to set on all children.

setchildprops(self, "hide")

making sure to check the non default "use_self" property of the driver.

enter image description here

Now if you keyframe the "hide" property of the same object it will hide / show children accordingly. Note it will not update the UI automatically, until some property eg frame is updated.

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  • $\begingroup$ Anyone tried this with 2.82 too? $\endgroup$ – wassx May 5 '20 at 6:29
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  • Consider a driver which copies the Render Visibility value of the parent. This will be successful.

  • The objects will still be available for [3D View Window] viewing. Only you can determine if this arrangement suits you.

  • You might even copy the [3D View Window] visibility based on the Render Visibility of the parent or any other object.
  • Please click on the image below to see a larger image.

enter image description here

  • The purple color on the visibility settings indicates a script. The eye dropper was used for the target ... the parents render visibilty. Arrow indicates the driver.

  • Consider the copy and paste of drivers from the context menu.

  • The contents of the driver are shown in the graph drivers pane.

  • You might even consider layer visibility to avoid clutter.
  • If you have a simple still shot ... you can move objects off the viewable area. This idea is for simple circumstances only.
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