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I need to animate a soda can opening. So far, I have used some shape keys to distort the flap on the top and etc, but it's not working very well, specially for iterations.

I am not good at rigging, so I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction to rig the opening tab in the can, to achieve an animation such as the following video:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%C3%96ffnen_einer_Getr%C3%A4nkedose.gif

Thank you very much in advance for any input!

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  • $\begingroup$ Just a thought, the deformation of the tab will happen over a longer time, but deforming the flap and actually opening the can is very quick, possibly only a couple of frames. It might suffice to change between two shapekeys on one manually placed intermediate frame. $\endgroup$
    – Allen Simpson
    Mar 21, 2022 at 17:39
  • $\begingroup$ @AllenSimpson You're right about the short duration and I have tried with shape keys only. The problem I'm having is that the flap deforms (shrinks &stretches again) when turning on the X-axis. Also, someone else will be working on this file later on, so I thought some form of armature would be best. $\endgroup$
    – pschinzel
    Mar 22, 2022 at 6:54
  • $\begingroup$ you should show us what you tried so far... $\endgroup$
    – Chris
    Mar 23, 2022 at 15:13
  • $\begingroup$ Why complicate thing? Just animate few transforms $\endgroup$
    – Ebi
    Mar 23, 2022 at 18:37

1 Answer 1

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My approach would be to use Softbody physics on the can and make the tab a Collision object (perhaps also with a softbody physics to bend the tab). Something like (crudely modeled):

enter image description here

here's my example:

The can has mostly stationary vertices (as specified "stationary" in the SB "Goal" vertex group). Or you could make the can top a separate object like a cap where the edges are stationary (Goal).

enter image description here

I'd be sure to define a sufficient number of vertices that have triangulated faces on the top of the can, so that the distortion is realistic, but not too many so that the simulation bake doesn't take too much CPU effort. Then use Smooth Shading or possibly a Subdivision Surface modifier to make the rendering more realistic.

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