Patent Absurdity animation breakdown

The layers are as follows:

• Layer 1: Background map & camera
• Layer 2: Patent boxes
• Layer 3: Nuke bezier curves
• Layer 4: Auto-generated nuke explosions
• Layer 5: Auto-generated nuke curve controls

And then the following templating layers:

• Layer 6: Patent box templates (do not remove!)
• Layer 7: Nuke curve machinery templates (do not remove!)

When rendering it makes sense to have layers 1-4 visible.

The "user interfaces" for creating patents and nuke curves are a bit… non-gui. :)

To create a new patent box, set the timeline to the point in time that you want the patent box to appear. Then set the 3d cursor to the position you want the patent box to appear.

Now go the scene buttons menu. Scroll to the bottom where it says Custom Properties. Add or edit the Patent Template variable and set it to whichever patent template you want:

• pat_adobe for Adobe style
• pat_ibm for IBM style
• pat_oracle for Oracle style
• pat_msft for Microsoft style
• pat_appl for Apple style

Now go to the python console and type:

>>> bpy.ops.patanim.appearify_patent()

If you move the timeline back and forth a bit you should see a patent box appear where the 3d cursor is set.

• How it works
  

  The functionality for this is fairly simple. The template box and text are copied from layer 6 and moved to the 3d cursor. Then a random number between 500000-750000 is assigned to the patent box text. A few keys are inserted: the text and box are scaled to 0 (invisible) before the appearance point, then scaled into view with a few keys added to give a mild up and down "bouncing" into view appearance.

  The save_excursion decorator is used to set the layers, 3d cursor, and etc back to where they were before the operation was performed.

Duplicate one of the basic curves or make one from scratch. Check out the object properties of the curve… you should see these important properties:

• start_frame: What frame the nuke will launch on
• flight_time: How long the nuke travels for
• explosion_radius: How big the explosion will be

The rest of these variables will be auto-filled; you can ignore them.

If you select the curve you want to animate and run:

>>> bpy.ops.patanim.nukify_curves()

It'll create a nuke off of that bezier curve that starts, ends, and explodes at the appropriate point. If the curve has an existing explosion circle, it will be removed and reset and sized to the right points at the right time.

You can make a nuke curve from any arbitrary curve as long as it has these three essential properties. In addition, whatever material you assign to this curve will also be used on the explosion.

• How it works
  

  The "nuke curve" is given volume with a curvecircle. The "drawn path" is controlled via a taper curve. Normally a taper curve is used to control a kind of waviness/volume of the curve, but it can also be used to control visibility. This is why there is the "curve machinery" which is borrowed from layer 7 and assigned to layer 5. This bit of machinery is simply a curve with four points:

  1______2
         |
         + <- hook empty
         |
         3_______4
  

  Points 1 and two have the Y coordinate of 1 whereas points 3 and 4 have the Y coordinate of 0. Wherever the curve is 1 full visibility of the curve is shown and wherever it is 0 the curve is invisible. Since the points 2 and 3 are "controlled" by the hook empty between them, you can move this back and forth along the X axis to control the moving visibility of the curve. This gives the appearance of a moving curve… a clever hack. :) (Thanks to Bassam Kurdali for showing me how to do this.)

  The hook is set to start at the left of the taper machine at the start_time custom property and move to the right at start_time + flight_time. Thus the illusion of a growing line is given and automated.

  At the time of start_time + flight_time, an explosion circle is inserted, scaled to point 0, and then a few frames later, scaled to explosion_radius (with an intermediate x scaling "stretch" key to add a bit of bouncy life to the explosion).

  The save_excursion decorator is used to set the layers, 3d cursor, and etc back to where they were before the operation was performed.