Iris Animation Like a Camera?

#1

Has anyone done an Iris animation like the iris on a camera? If so do you have any tips on both modeling and animating it?

#2

Come on guys, someone has some experience here. If you are not sure what I’m asking I will clarify it. If you think it’s a newb idea, I’m sorry.

I already have several thoughts but was looking for a “magic bullet” if someone has one that could save me a lot of time.

#3

an iris opening like on the shutter of a camera?

I managed to create one once in lightwave using two morphs…

create a single iris element, which is a kind of sharkfin shape, & clone it so that you have a ring of them in a closed position & then create another ring of them in the open position & morph between the two.

#4

look at a real iris. its a bunch of shapes with a pivot point, they pivot simultaneously to form the iris closing/opening.

copy the setup, place pivots and use expressions to link the rotation of the irises to a null or something.

Then spin the null to affect all of the irises at once.

(make sure that you parent the iris shapes to nulls and then move the nulls to put the irises into position).

#5

Thanks guys. I will try these ideas.

#6

The null idea worked great. Haven’t tried the morph idea yet.

#7

I suggest you stick to the null idea. the morph idea will move the vertices linearly while a real iris leaf rotates around a pivot.

#8

here’s a quicktime showing a morph test, modelled, animated, rendered (LW+FPrime) & composed into a .mov in 1hr.

the pivots are a little off so there’s a bit of wobble in the opening but dependent on how close you will be & how fast you need the opening to happen I doubt that it would be noticable in an animation.

If the null method worked, great…but for something so simple I usually use the simplest method…one iris, two morph targets, blend between them. The linearity of morphing shouldn’t be a problem as the individual blades rotate linearly anyway, it would only be an issue if they needed to bend like a finger.

#9

here is a pretty accurate model on turbo squid of an iris. definitelly not a linear motion.

Turbo Squid Iris

#10

:applause:…you’re correct, if you need to see the working mechanism then a morph will most probably be insufficient…if you only see the actual opening of the shutter at 100px across for 1.5 seconds then you could probably just use a textured ring that opens & closes. I mearly wanted to pass on the simplest method, not to most accurate.

When working to a deadline you’ll not be praised for spending hours on a solution to something insignificant no matter how it should be…if it looks right then it is right. I’ve yet to see an anatomically correct bone & muscle setup for a CG character & it’s pointless trying to create one because it will be over-complicating the rigging process…that’s not to say that you shouldn’t study the real thing just that you don’t always need to copy it.

#11

absolutely. i see your point.

although if speed was really that much of the essence, you could always buy that model off turbo squid. the prices are very reasonable :slight_smile:

#12

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