Motion Graphics path help 3DS Max

allknighter

Hey there.
I am currently making motiongraphics for a school promo.
I am going to use the logo as a foundation, as they have one pulse for each faculty, and ill have that as a trademark through the movie.
Problem is.
I figured i should be using path deform to animate the pulses along a path, but at every corner it doesnt understand what to do...



anyone have any idea what i can do to make it follow more accurately?

Mark Dygert

That's a pretty sharp corner and I don't think pathdeform is going to behave the way you want it to. It's going to cheat those pointy bits. If you can't round out the shape, it's going to be nearly impossible to get a mesh to conform to it perfectly.

But you can handle a few different ways:

1) Animate the UV's or a blend material.

3) Animate Add/Subtract operands inside of a ProBoolean Compound Object, to reveal different meshes.

There's a lot you can do with ProBooleans.

4) You could try animating the Vol. Select modifier over the shape, I think it has a replace feature? I'm more familiar with the Vol Select Particle View.

5) I guess you could use to Particle Flow to spawn particles over the surface of the mesh and then, use it's vol select to delete them. If you do start using particle flow you might find you can do some other tricks, like using wind to blow them off the surface.

6) Do it in post with animated masks in a program like After Effects or Nuke.