Animating or simulating sliced geometry?

[Anonymous]

Hello and thanks for your time,

Is there a way to animate geometry being sliced, or removed by another piece of geometry? 

So very much like a boolean but not as limited. (unless my knowledge to date is limited!)

Here's a good analogy: think of a knife slicing a cucumber: The knife shape/sharpness cuts through the cucumber and the knife imparts it's flat shape upon the cucumber. But at the same time, the cucumber is animated and moving along so that the knife can cut more slices.  If there is a slight turn to the movement of the cucumber then the cucumber would get cut an angle. 

So the animation is more of a simulation to see an outcome instead of a prescribed set-up of booleans slices or rigs.

Plugins, scripts, versions, other? Please advise!

[leeminardi]

Perhaps this tutorial I created a few years ago of a machine tool cutting a block may give you some ideas for your animation.

[Anonymous]

thanks this is cool and helpful. Mabye a volume mod can also help.  When the boolean cut occurs, I want to make sure the mesh is lost and stays lost. Hopefully not keyframed though. Not sure...

In my head right now, there will be many moving parts so it will get complex fast. I am exploring what options 3dsmax has.