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I have a rectangular shape parented to a circle set to duplivert, with rotation checked. It took a little bit of fiddling to get the rotation to work the way I wanted. At first the rectangles didn't rotate, or did so oddly, until I created a face for the circle, and then deleted that face again.

ring of rectangles facing in and all leaning towards the center

Now I want to rotate the rectangles so the top ends fan outwards. I've moved forward a few frames and tried to set that up, but this time I can't get the rotation to work the same way. It's like it will do it on 2 axes, but not the third. I have tried every combination of Tracking Axes under Relation Extras with no luck.

Is there a way to get this to work with dupliverts?

ring of rectangles facing in, but tilted to one side.

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  • $\begingroup$ Plenty of ways if not dupliverts.. do you have a reason you need dupliverts? $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 8:23
  • $\begingroup$ @RobinBetts, no, i don't need to use dupliverts. I just thought i could and it would be easy. I have done very little animation. I am looking at animating the rectangles when placed with array modifiers, now. I have to figure it out. $\endgroup$
    – kim holder
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 16:11

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You could use Dupliverts as an arranging tool, as you have already, working all at the origin, with the original plane's normal facing down its own local Y axis, (you may have to rotate it in Edit mode) as shown:

enter image description here

Then, to set up a basic rig:

  • With the circle selected, CtrlShiftA .. 'Make Duplicates Real'. Check 'Parent' The planes are now all instances, and can be transformed independently, but are all children of the circle.
  • Delete the original plane, and replace it with an empty at the origin.
  • Select a memorable plane-instance, and assign a Locked Track constraint to it. 'Target': the empty.'To':-Y. 'Lock': X
  • Select all the other planes, with the constrained one still active, and in the header Object > Constraints menu, hit 'Copy constraints to selected' Now all the planes should be constrained to look at the empty.
  • CtrlP parent the empty to the circle
  • To tidy up, in the properties region of the 3D view, lock all the transforms of the empty, except Z location.
  • To tidy up further, select all the planes, and in an Outliner window, Alt-uncheck the selection arrow on one of them.

enter image description here

Now none of the planes should be directly selectable, the empty should only be able to move up and down in its local Z, (with the planes following), and the whole group can be moved or rotated by its parent circle.

enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ This is a very complete answer. Thanks. It was instructive to go through it, because i know enough that once i followed the steps, i said to myself 'oh, yeah, that makes sense...'. $\endgroup$
    – kim holder
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 20:41
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    $\begingroup$ It's a choice! @moonboots solution is simpler and gives you direct control over angle. You could even just animate by setting pivot to 'Individual Origins', Transform Orientation to 'Local' and using RXX, rotating each plane in its local X. BTW BSE doesn't really go for asking the same question twice ;) $\endgroup$
    – Robin Betts ♦
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 20:52
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, I thought about the repost issue, but because this one is specifically about dupliverts, and the other is about the specific movement in the animation, I figured they could each stand on their own. For someone looking for information later, they each address a somewhat different issue, even though they are about the same problem. $\endgroup$
    – kim holder
    Commented May 7, 2019 at 21:07

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