animating visibility/transparency

#1

Hi,

I have an assembly of lets say 50 objects and I want them to get transparent over some seconds and at the same time. I dont want to manually keyframe and animate the transparency-channel of each single object.
So I had the idea to link all objects (different materials) to an effector or to a parent object (inherit visability is on). Now I can change the visability of all objects (simultan via “animate visability” Button) from one frame to the next frame (from 100% to 0%…right ?).
But I would like this to happen smoother.
When I try the same with animating the transparency channel of the parent, the childs dont follow. Also doing this with the help of master materials doesnt make much sense.
What`s the trick with that ?

Thanks,
Tom

#2

Hi Tom

The inherit visability function only works with the visability check box, ie it is either on or off. It doesn’t affect the material transparency.

What you need to do is link your 50 object to a master material and then animated the transparency of this material.

I hope this makes sense

Robert

#3

If the objects only have to fade in/out, it’s probably easier to do this in post, render the scene background, and the objects with alpha channel, and fade them in AE.

Cheers

Hans

#4

Hi Robert,

thank you.
Yes, I could do that, but the point is:

  • The animation contains of several assemblies (product variations) standing in the same position, which I want to blend in or out.
  • The different parts of that assemblies are linked to the same master-materials.
  • All in all there will be about ten different master materials.

But anyway, if there`s no chance to animate the transparency channel of several objects
with the chanel of one parent object (or an effector), this seems the way to go.
May be I should copy the different master-materials to build groups which correspond
to the different product-assemblies.

AE ?
Good idea. I didnhave that in mind, because I still dont have to much practice in AE.

Thanks a lot
Tom

#5

XP would be perfect for this task. Use a ‘for loop’. There is a sample project in the XP help that does almost exactly what you’re after.

Best,
Ian

#6

Remember if you animate transparency of the materials, you will need to keep track of the shadows too. The objects will not be able to cast shadows which may look flat.

I am also looking for a simplier way to do this and will look at XP.

Let there B3D

#7

Thanks for helping guys.
Seems to be a good chance to dive into XP a little bit deeper :wink:

#8

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