Timelapse Assets

Creating The Asset

Since the asset must show the effect of time, we need to make an animatable group with a time driver that will take from 'creation' to 'death' though in some cases we will only need a subsection of the total lifetime of an object. For example, a security camera may be installed, operate for a while, age and rust, and finally cease function and be removed. The rig for the camera, in addition to controlling (for example) the swivel of the camera head, must have a property that can control the age of the camera in those stages. It's easiest to break up this workflow into steps.

Modeling

modeling is pretty normal, except: You'll be modeling multiple stages. One way is to make a default stage that is representative of the model in the longest period of its existence, then make variations from copying that.

Animation

Next step is to animate the model/s. Don't worry about rigging/linking, here are some helpful hints: - shapekeys are nice for either specific changes, or for general dishevelment - lattice modifiers are nice because they can apply to multiple objects, you can then use a shapekey or other modifiers to affect the lattice - the modifier stack is your friend! - you can use mask modifiers to hide/unhide bits of your model, or booleans with animated cutters (but be careful, they're finicky) - have fun, be creative! If you want to animate directly, use modifiers (hook everything to an empty, then animate that empty)

Shaders

Shaders might be the trickiest bit , the thing to remember is to think about how the material changes over time, not just fade it from 'old' to 'new' – the result will be either too subtle to see or somewhat fake looking if sped up. There's a growing library of timelapse nodes that should help with this – also if you end up creating something particularly cool, we can add it to the library. The library also has a built in 'time' input, so you don't have worry about the aging as much.

Rigging (timelapse)

Create an armature object (this should be the same one you use to control any non – timelapse animation of the group) and pick a bone that will be the driver for all the timelapse, and add a custom property to it – the name 'time' is quite appropriate. Then on to timelapse toolbox!

Timelapse Toolbox

In order

So you're not on your own – this addon should help in the process