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I'm wondering if something like this is possible to make in Blender:

This animation I found on Dribble looks really amazing. The person who made it says it is done on Cinema 4D.

It looks like a string starting with a circular shape, then it is being twisted into a sphere with equal spacing in between. The sphere is then rotated and finally returning to its original circular shape.

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Yes.

There are probably multiple ways of doing this, but one way is to use a circle with a simple deform modifier set to twist, and using an empty as the twist origin:

enter image description here

By animating the rotation of both the circle and the empty, you can make it twist around, and by animating the deform angle, you can control the amount of twisting.

Result: (click for better quality)

Example .blend

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  • $\begingroup$ Oh, I didn't know there is a simple deform modifier and so I tried it right away in Blender. It generated a result almost identical to the gif! That's awesome, thanks. (You also mentioned there are other ways to achieve this effect. What would be some other methods to do it?) $\endgroup$
    – Derek 朕會功夫
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 7:05
  • $\begingroup$ I haven't thought of any that work yet, I just said that as a disclaimer that this is probably not the only way. I'll update the answer if I think of one :) $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 7:21
  • $\begingroup$ That's fine I don't really need that many ways just to create one effect anyway. By the way, this is the one I just made using your method, and here's another one I found that's not spinning like crazy. I realized that mine starts off facing up and later the poles are facing horizontally, however in the one I found the circles and the poles are always facing horizontally. I can't seem to recreate that (there's no option to change how it is twisted it seems). $\endgroup$
    – Derek 朕會功夫
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 7:51
  • $\begingroup$ That is controlled by the orientation of the empty. Example .blend: pasteall.org/blend/31918. The amount of twisting is controlled by the angle in the modifier. $\endgroup$
    – gandalf3
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 8:01
  • $\begingroup$ I know it is controlled by the empty, but no matter how it is rotated they just won't face the same direction. $\endgroup$
    – Derek 朕會功夫
    Commented Oct 6, 2014 at 8:08

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