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So I previously asked a question on how to separate the faces of an object like an Icosphere. I decided that this next part would be best for a separate question.

Taking that Icosphere and an Empty, how would a best be able to achieve the results shown in these tutorials? Here is what my object looks like:

enter image description here

So I need to be able to drag an Empty through the sphere and have the triangles scale, and or rotate inward or outward as seen in the image.

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    $\begingroup$ Can you please a description of what your trying to achieve? If the link goes down, no one will know what your asking. However, based upon the question in the title, I would recommend using parenting. $\endgroup$ – CharlesL Aug 8 '13 at 22:32
  • $\begingroup$ Is that better? $\endgroup$ – Owen Patterson Aug 8 '13 at 22:58
  • $\begingroup$ Oh yeah and I tryed parenting and it didn't work. Did you check the link? $\endgroup$ – Owen Patterson Aug 8 '13 at 22:58
  • $\begingroup$ You might be interested in the Cast and Wave modifiers. $\endgroup$ – gandalf3♦ Aug 9 '13 at 0:59
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One way I found that gets a similar effect, is using hair particles to emit triangles:

  1. Add a sphere as an emitter mesh:
    enter image description here

  2. Add a plane and merge (AltM) two vertices to create a single tri: enter image description hereenter image description here

  3. Set the Particle settings for the sphere to hair, select the tri as object in Particle settings > Render, disable Emitter so the emitter mesh is not rendered, and enable Rotation in Render.
    enter image description here

  4. Now rotating the tri causes the particles to rotate as well:
    enter image description here

  5. Force fields will also effect the hair particles, so you can get effects with them too.

Duplifaces

This can also be achieved with duplifaces:

  1. Parent the tri to an icosphere

  2. Select the sphere, and enable Duplifaces in Properties > Object panel > Duplication > Faces

  3. (Optional) Enable Scale and tweak scale settings.

  4. You can apply the dupli objects with Ctrl+Shift+A (With the sphere selected)

  5. Add a constraint to one of the now separate triangle objects (you might want to make these a Group with Ctrl+G so you can select them all easily with Shift+G > Group)

  6. You can then constrain each tri individually, select them all with the constrained tri active (yellow) and object > constraints > copy constraints to selected objects:

enter image description here

Note that with Duplifaces the trick of rotating the original tri still works, but force fields do not.

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  • $\begingroup$ Can you expound on how to do the duplifaces I tried those steps and it didn't work so if you could put in more detail, on what exactly I need to do. $\endgroup$ – Owen Patterson Aug 9 '13 at 21:32
  • $\begingroup$ @OwenPatterson Updated answer. $\endgroup$ – gandalf3♦ Aug 9 '13 at 23:53
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You can scale an them apart and rotate them in if you use separate objects.

  1. Separate the mesh by going into edit mode, selecting P > By Loose Parts

  2. Reset the origins for the objects by pressing ShiftCtrlAltC and select Origin to Geometry.

  3. Change the pivot point to individual origins:

    Set the Pivot Point

  4. Press R or RR to rotate the objects.

  5. To scale the objects away from each other, use the little button next to the pivot point menu:

    scale away from each other

  6. Press S and scale away.

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