Animate dispearing geometery - 3DS Max 7

[abductedmind]

I am trying to create the effect of the membrane progressively disappearing from around a muscle cell. Look at the linked QuickTime video to see where I am headed with it. Currently I am using a Boolean to do the job, but the result is not good. You will see the flickering of faces - arbitrarily disappearing for 1 frame and coming back


http://www.kevint.us/animation_help_needed.zip

What I need is a technique that I can use withing max 7 to get the same effect, only without the flickering. If this is something that I should not be attempting, I would also appreciate that kind of advice as well.

Thanks!

[Clalan]

it only happens during animation right? if you do a static boolean it works fine? I notice some flickering in the branch after the boolean has passed that point.. what you could do is swap your original geometry with one that already been cut up to that point.

you could push this in the extreme and create a static boolean for every frame and then animate their visibility. but that's something your would want a script to do for you

I don't know if boolean is the right way to go, but I can't think of another solution. well, not one that is guaranteed to work

[sketch7]

Just wondering - can't you just fix it in post? If it's only a couple of frames, comp over an image (just on the left half where the problem is) in Photoshop or something, use a clean half from later on in the animation.

If you're rendering individual frames, it shouldn't take much to fix the couple that are causing you issues - just a workaround