Animating a growing plant - Ideas?

Diomede

I am making a fantasy Carrara plant (custom leaves and fruit).  I want to animate the plant growing from a sapling with no leaves and green stem to a mid-life taller trunk with more leaves and finally to a full grown tree with ripe fruit.  The shader animates fine (changing trunk from green to brown), but the tree modeler settings don't seem to be animatable (trunk length, weight given to leaves/fruit,...).

a - what can be animated for Carrara plants, and what cannot?  Is there a guide somewhere?

b - if you were going to animate a growing plant that produces fruit late in the animation, how would you do it?

WendyLuvsCatz

I think it would need to be converted to a vertex model

then create morph targets

Diomede

Thanks for the suggestion.  Too bad,  I guess I will use a different method to convey passage of time, perhaps using dissolve transitions.  Thinking cap on.

RuudL

a - If you want to know what can be animated of any object, including plants, you simply have to unfold the object listting (Universe, Master Objects and Master Shaders) in the sequencer.

RuudL

b - I would try this with a PyModifier ( part of PyCarrara ). Start with an small invisible fruit object, make it visible at a given time and after that gradually adjust the scale and shader. 

Headwax

Hi ted, there was discusion similar to this on the old forum ? about animating a vine - can't remember what the answer was

I just tried animating a replicated thingy by changing the shader - no joy

You can, however, animate splines if you wanted to go that way ;)

Headwax

ah there's leaves blowing ... not quite the same as growing!

Steve K

Diomede said:

Thanks for the suggestion.  Too bad,  I guess I will use a different method to convey passage of time, perhaps using dissolve transitions.  Thinking cap on.

That was my first thought, as always slanted by the 48 Hour Contest - time is of the essence.  The dissolve can be done in seconds in the video editor.  One example (starts ~1:05) from Howie's great products for Carrara:

Steve K

Also, I realize this is probably not what you're looking for, but a Particle Illusion 2D overlay on any image or video.  Starts a few seconds in:

Diomede

Thank you for the great information, RUUDL, Headwax, and SteveK.  The screengrabs and video examples are especially helpful.

DUDU

Hi Ted!

I remember using 'VUE 5" to make these animation of plant: see at the minute 6:40

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xehl9h

Diomede

DUDU said:

Hi Ted!

I remember using 'VUE 5" to make these animation of plant: see at the minute 6:40

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xehl9h

Great animation!  Thanks for posting.  How did you do the flaming meteorites?  Another issue I am trying to figure out is the fire breathed by a dragon.

Great to see you posting again.  Hope you are well.  What projects have you been working on?

Steve K

DUDU said:

Hi Ted!

I remember using 'VUE 5" to make these animation of plant: see at the minute 6:40

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xehl9h

Good point, DUDU.  I still consider VUE one of the best 3D animation programs, but recently got more into DS/Iray to use some high quality products.  Carrara, VUE, DS, Poser ... >B-O

WendyLuvsCatz

Dudu, that is one impressive animation 

Stezza

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Dudu, that is one impressive animation 

+1 on that  

Bunyip02

Syezza said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Dudu, that is one impressive animation 

+1 on that  

+2 (Got a long way to go on my animations !!!!)

DesertDude

DUDU said:

Hi Ted!

I remember using 'VUE 5" to make these animation of plant: see at the minute 6:40

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xehl9h

This is exquisite! And the musique original is beautiful!

DesertDude

Diomede said:

I am making a fantasy Carrara plant (custom leaves and fruit).  I want to animate the plant growing from a sapling with no leaves and green stem to a mid-life taller trunk with more leaves and finally to a full grown tree with ripe fruit.  The shader animates fine (changing trunk from green to brown), but the tree modeler settings don't seem to be animatable (trunk length, weight given to leaves/fruit,...).

a - what can be animated for Carrara plants, and what cannot?  Is there a guide somewhere?

b - if you were going to animate a growing plant that produces fruit late in the animation, how would you do it?

 I was able to make a crude quick test of 2 generations of branches growing and leaves growing in succession, with a little overlap. Your animation would need much more care and planning, but anyways, for lack of a better term this is a "stop motion" animation.

https://youtu.be/8zHYPfv-2ZA

This is just the generic plant dropped in. I didn't animate the trunk. In the Experts Tab, I dialed back the Length Ratio in the Gen1 Branches, and udjusted their Start and End angles so as I increased the Length Ratio, they would grow up and fall down outwards and give a little bounce.

I also changed the Leaf Size from 0 to 1 and gave them a slight Twist.

So, with each change I made a render and gave them names to be used as an image sequence and then rendered out a final movie.

 

DesertDude

Even though you can add objects as leaves, I can't get animations or morphs added to those leaves to work when added to plants. Has anyone ever tried before and had success?

I tried both morphs and some simple keyframe animation added to a custum leaf, exported and saved all internally in the file. But when added to the tree, and I move the playhead down the timeline, nothing happens.

I was hoping that might be an easy way to finesse the developing leaves and eventually the fruit.