1
$\begingroup$

I want to create an animation where a arrow points from the red circle to the blue circle.

My standard approch would be, to start with a cube on frame 1, deform the cube to a rectangle in frame 2, than to a long line and eventually in frame 4 I have the full arrow.

Now in this approach two things are not optimal:

  1. The arrow looks really bad.
  2. Its hard work to do this.

Is there a shorter approach to get a more accurate looking arrow which is developing during time? I know the curve->path object, but I dont know how to explain to blender that it should develop during time (as in the image below).

Example

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
5
  • $\begingroup$ @gandalf3 this is basically it - but how do I get the arrow at the end (instead of simply a line)? $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Commented Sep 1, 2014 at 22:05
  • $\begingroup$ You could use a second curve object $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Sep 1, 2014 at 22:07
  • $\begingroup$ @gandalf3 is it also possible that the arrow is visible in the whole animation? $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 20:19
  • $\begingroup$ Couldn't you just not animate the bevel factor? $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Sep 14, 2014 at 1:00
  • $\begingroup$ I found a proper answer to this question here: youtube.com/watch?v=TEuWVlbXVB4 $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Commented Sep 19, 2014 at 16:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1
$\begingroup$

One solution is to make your arrow as a Curve, and then adding a Build Modifier to it.

enter image description here

It will animate along the direction of the curve (represented by the arrows in Edit mode), but you can check Reverse to change this. Also you can cange the start and length fields to your likes.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$
1
  • $\begingroup$ I added a Curve by Curve->Path but I when I try to apply the build modifier I get the error message "cannot apply constructive modifiers on curve". Also: How can I transform a Path to an arrow? How do you get the head of the arrow? $\endgroup$
    – Adam
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 20:01

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .