FFD 4x4x4 modifier required in Dope Sheet.

[jeremy ramsay]

I need to put a little bend in some geometry during an animation. I'm just about getting the hang of the Dope Sheet and proceeded with confidence looking for the FFD 4x4x4 modifier that would suit perfectly for what I want. I have already modified the object I want to affect, and converted it to Edit Poly. Problem is when I go into the Dope Sheet there is a very limited selection of possible modifiers available, things like Fall off, Pinch, Bubble, Iterations which are no good. I'm looking for things like Edit Mesh or Edit Poly or Ideally the FFD 4x4x4, so i can pull the geometry around at the right time in the animation. Can anyone help with this please.

[BrianKitts]

don't collapse your modifier stack or convert to editable poly. You need to leave the FFD box in the modifier stack for it to show up in the dope sheet. Then you can control the animation keys for all of it's controllers.

[alias_marks]

If you've already collapsed and you dont' want to deal with animating a bunch of handles through the dope sheet. I might also look into the morpher modifier.

 

Basically, as long as you keep the same number of verts in your object, you can make a copy of it elsewhere, out of frame, change it up, and have your object morph into it or out of it depending on the weight you assign to it, then you can just animate the morph amount.

[jeremy ramsay]

Spot on chaps, helpful as ever.

[jeremy ramsay]

Brian, I followed your advise first but don't have the option to open the Master switch in the Dope Sheet to access the control points. I've included a screen grab here. Is there anything else I have to enable before I can get to the points?[ATTACH=CONFIG]41358[/ATTACH]

[jeremy ramsay]

Doesn't matter Brian, I'm sure I could have got your process to work but time is against me and the technique from Alias Marks has worked so thanks again to you.