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I am attempting to make an animation where hundreds of similar objects appear on a specified area of the world with a simple scaling animation as shown below:

enter image description here

However I only know how to make this manually by copying each individual object by hand and moving the keyframes manually, which naturally is too time consuming:

The array modifier would probably be closest to what I am looking for. but I don't know how, or if it is even possible to apply a scaling animation to the arrayed objects.

enter image description here

So my question is, what would be the simplest and the most efficient way to make hundreds of similar objects appear by "popping up" as shown in the first animation?

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  • $\begingroup$ i would recommend using the free commotion add-on $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 10:58
  • $\begingroup$ @Chris it looks like a good add-on. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 13:02

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I would do it with Geometry Nodes. Instance a cube along a Curve Line, then move an Empty along this line and scale the cubes according to their position relative to the Empty by subtracting the cube's position from the location of the Empty. Then maybe add a Map Range node to make it scale slower or quicker to your liking.

scaling cubes animation

This is my node setup:

scaling cubes node setup

PS: Of course you could instance other objects and even complete collections this way instead of a cube. And with more complex setups you could even use other than straight curves.

Thinking a little bit about the arbitrary curves, it's actually not a very complex setup to do it (rather less complex):

scaling along arbitrary curve

This is the node setup where you can simply use any curve object:

scaling cubes 2

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  • $\begingroup$ clamp in this case make things easy. :) $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 13:02
  • $\begingroup$ @NatureK Depending on what you want to achieve clamping is either mandatory or not necessary at all or even contrary to what you need. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 13:07
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    $\begingroup$ that's just an impression....don't let you fool by impressions... ;) $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 13:17
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    $\begingroup$ one more thing: if you have a GN node setup as Gordon made it where the curve is the input geometry, you can go in edit mode, press this button [1]: i.sstatic.net/GI29J.png and then you can draw your path like a pencil: [1]: i.sstatic.net/5triI.gif $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 13:23
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    $\begingroup$ @Chris Good addition. You can even draw or extrude curves while the animation is running :) And maybe you would then want to change the Resample Curve node to "Length" instead of "Count", so that you get more instances if a curve is longer and less when the curve is shorter. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 1, 2022 at 13:28

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