Clipper with Animated Geometry (Not just transforms)

[paultwyman]

Hello, is there a way to keep a mesh / stack animation as the clipper custom mesh? It works fine with animated transforms but not actual animated geometry.
Is there a way to do this at all? I am guessing it is taking a snapshot as a mesh so losing the animated data but wondered if there is a way as I need an animated shape as opposed to just a moving object.

Any ideas would be appreciated.
Paul

[paultwyman]

Amazing I literally just answered my own question, if you add mesh with replace clipper and then extract that back out as a node you can animate that mesh as an instance.
Hope this helps someone

[paultwyman]

Oh, looks like a spoke too soon.

Works as far as updating clipper in viewport but doesn't store animation.

Any ideas?

[paultwyman]

Okay, just in case it helps someone else I have managed to get it working using a Morpher modifier under the Clipper in the stack using two separate morph target meshes and making sure that Automatically Reload Targets is checked (IMPORANT)

Not sure if there is an easier way but hopefully this will help someone.

[heikki_anttila]

Thank you! - was gonna experiment with morphs myself but this saved me time.

Heikki

[fixeighted]

Do you have a small test scene where this doesn't work?

I used an animated face of a box to cut a teapot and that works fine, if that's a similar example.

[heikki_anttila]

It is bit weird I can't now re-create it. I will check again tomorrow - I have a scene where it happened - slice value of a tube is animated and the clipper doesn't update but it does work with the moprh.

[fixeighted]

Just tried that and no issues either. That's using Max 24 btw. Maybe there's something else in your setup that's interfering in an odd way...