Hand Animated Lightning Test
::1mb::

A number of projects (Orb,Judas,Unannounced for MPC),have come up that would be enhanced by a user friendly way to animate lightning/elec arcs. So with that in mind, I kicked out an automated setup to allow control over the arc of the path, chaos, intensity, while still allowing individual controls to shape the arc entirely by hand if needed.

The arc's ends can be constrained to scene elements to allow tracking or kept global to allow the arc to race along a surface.

The output is a single nurbs curves, which can then be layered atop with paint effects, extrudes, or locators for post effect work.

The above animation (lightning only) took about 40 mins to key.

The First character on my list to get this setup is my Orb. For his welding laser, but also when he disables his enemies or control consoles.