animating a cut

[Anonymous]

I have a piece of duct. Its not a perfect rectangle. It has ribs and between the ribs, the geometry sinks in ever so slightly. That sink is probably not visible in my screenshot. I want to animate the cut going around the "cap" relieving a gap between the duct and cap before the cap is removed from the duct. (lol, did you follow that?)

Before the cut is made, ideally, the surface should look whole with no clue that the cut is about to happen. 

Ideas on how to do this?

[leeminardi]

This may not be exactly what you want to do but I was able to simulate the removal of material by a machine tool by using a PathDeform modifier coupled with a Boolean subtract.

[Anonymous]

I have no idea how you were able to do that. It looks like a great solution but when I use proboolean to subtract the path deformed geometry, the path deformed geometry just disappears. 

I tried to understand what you did with the multiple probooleans and the conform on your base object, but I'm totally missing something. Would you be able to give step by step instructions by any chance?

[Anonymous]

It looks like when I select the path deformed geometry in my proboolean, that the path deform modifier disappears. It doesn't let me add the path deform after its been probooleaned either.

[leeminardi · Accepted solution]

I just posted a detailed outline of the process on youtube.  Here is the link. 

https://youtu.be/q3H9jMNJLQw

Lee

[Anonymous]

Ah ha!! I was using the pathdeform (WSM). That's what I was doing wrong. 

Thanks for taking the time to make that video!