[Bf-funboard] Un-build effect

[Konrad Haenel]

You mention something very interesting here:

"Setting the alpha on a face is not particularly processor intensive, 
even for large meshes, and since it's a relatively obscure effect, it 
seems down grading it to the status of "plug-in" seems logical. "

Is setting an alpha to faces of objects really so simple? I was looking 
for an object-based alpha-value (independent from the materials used) 
for quite some time in blender. This would really come in handy in 
countless situations (I made liberal use of that in MAX), I can't stress 
enough how much I am missing this. It may either be a plugin or an 
object property, I don't care as long as I can easily assign and animate it.

Robert Wenzlaff wrote:

> At 10:26 PM 11/23/04, you wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Since there is already a 'build' effect, there should also be an 
>> 'un-build' one. This might be useful for showing a snowman melting??
>>
>> However, is it possible to have the build effect fill-in random faces 
>> as an alternative to revealing them in a sort of spiral?
>
>
> As said by others, a time IPO can turn the build into an un-build.
>
> As to randomness, build just goes in the order the faces are in the 
> data structure.  HASH solves the similar problem for particles by 
> re[dis]organizing the data. Unfortunately, this doesn't touch the face 
> data.
>
> As to why there isn't a lot of configurability in the build effect:  
> the build effect is one of those "coded for a specific animation from 
> the NeoGeo days" leftovers. It served its purpose, and was promptly 
> forgotten...
>
> The real question is whether we take time to extend this feature, or 
> port it to a python script and remove it from the C codebase.  Setting 
> the alpha on a face is not particularly processor intensive, even for 
> large meshes, and since it's a relatively obscure effect, it seems 
> down grading it to the status of "plug-in" seems logical.
>
> Along those same lines, could the effects system be set up for real 
> plug-ins?  (Since if we ever do remove "build", the effects menu will 
> be pretty bare. Wave and Particle will get lonely...).
>
> Robert Wenzlaff
>
>
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