Logo Reveal - Character Animation Using MoGraph: Using an Instance to Reference the 3D model

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In this Video we will add an “instance” Object as the clone, so that we can easily change our main carrot model if we choose to do so.

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Transcript

In this video, we will add an instance object as the clone, so that we can easily change our main carrot model if we choose to do so. In the current setup, if I open up these hierarchies, you will see that the carrot hierarchy with the leafs and the low polygon carrots are exactly the same. I want to replace these hierarchies with an actual instance object. So, what I'm going to do is use an instance object to do that. So, let's begin. I'm, first of all, going to take either of these carrot hierarchies and drag it outside. Although, I don't really need to drag it outside, I'm going to drag it outside so that it's clearer what we're doing, and I'm going to remove the other ones. So, what we have here is our clone that is just cloning the actual null, and the squash and stretch deformer. With the carrot hierarchy selected, I'm going to go and create a new instance object. And this now, if it's selected and you go to [inaudible] manager, it references this hierarchy. So, with my Carrot Instance selected, I can click and drag and move it around, and we have a copy of this hierarchy. So, let me zero this out again...zero, zero, and zero. So, very simply, if I take this and drag it as a sibling of the Squash & Stretch deformer, I'm going to press Command now to make a copy and put it here, and with my Command key still pressed, I'm going to make a copy and put it here. And what you will see is that we have exactly the same situation we had when this was a physical model. Now, mind you there's one little detail, if you select any of the instances, and you click on Render Instance, so let me Cmd or Ctrl+click to select all three of the instances and set Render Instance, then the set up will not work, because the Render Instance switch, actually makes this a 100% copy of the original thing and cannot be modified by deformers. Whereas if this is off, then it copies the geometry but creates an object that can be deformed. And this is why this works properly. Now there's one more thing I'd like you to pay attention. If you go here in the middle, you will see that there is one carrot, this one over here, which is not moving. And this is because this is the actual object that's being referenced. Now, we can move it out of our screen camera space, so I can just move it down or something like that. But then, depending on which angle you have, you may be able to see it. So, let me undo and bring it back to its original position. Now, another thing I could do is just go and hide it, so click on the traffic lights here, and here, and I've hidden it, but because the traffic lights have been applied on the actual object we are referencing, remember, carrot...carrot, than this state is going to be referenced as well. So, I'm going to turn it on again. There is very simple workaround. Let's create a null, and bring the null down here, and make the carrot a child of the null. I'm going to call this Carrot Hider. You can call it anything you want. Now, if I hide this object, than the actual carrot disappears, but it's still visible in render and in editor in the instances because this object that's been referenced does not have the traffic lights set to red. So, if I select this and move it, you will see you can't see a carrot moving, because it's invisible in render and in the view port. So, at this point, we have a very simple scenario where we can exchange anything underneath this hierarchy with anything else we want. For example, let's use a potato. So, I have a low polygon potato, I'm going to select it and press Cmd+C or Ctrl+C on the PC, to copy it, and I'm going to go back to my scene. I'm going to paste my potato, drag it here, and I can get rid of my carrots. And now, I have my potato being referenced instead of the carrot. So, there you have it. A very simple way to use an instance object so that you can exchange your deformed geometry with any object you need in one simple step.
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