This is a very short tutorial on how to create the cylinder animation you're currently watching in the video.
Video Transcript
Hello everyone! This is a very short tutorial on how to create the cylinder animation you're currently watching in the video.
I used this animation in last week's tutorial, where I employed this animated shape to make another 3D model disappear using the Boolean modifier.
As with everything in Blender, there are multiple ways to achieve this animation. In this tutorial, I'll show you a solution that involves using the Screw and Solidify modifiers.
The Screw modifier allows you to perform extrusions around a center of rotation, and it also lets you move the extruded parts along the rotation axis. This makes it especially suited for creating twisted shapes, hence the name "Screw."
In the modifier settings, you can define both the axis around which the twisting occurs and an external object that can optionally serve as the axis. In my case, I don't need an external object because I’ll use the object's Origin and its Z-axis, so I need to ensure these elements are set up correctly.
I add a Plane to the scene and rotate it in Object Mode around the X-axis to make it vertical.
To ensure its bottom-left vertex aligns with the origin of the virtual world, I move the Plane along the X-axis and the Z-axis in Object Mode.
Now I need to set the Origin of the object at the bottom-left vertex. This can be done by moving the 3D Cursor to that point and then using the Set Origin to 3D Cursor tool. However, in this specific case, it's enough to press CTRL A and choose Location. This operation moves the object's Origin to the center of the virtual world, which, in this case, aligns with the bottom-left vertex.
To correctly apply the Screw modifier on the Z axis, we also need to apply the rotation transformations, as the Plane is currently rotated from its initial orientation. Therefore, I press CTRL A and select the Rotation option.
By default, the Screw modifier has a 360 degree angle and a Screw value of 0. This means it performs extrusions with rotation but without any translation along the rotation axis. For our purposes, this setting works perfectly.
The number of extrusions to be performed is controlled by the Steps parameters, which are separate for the 3D Viewport preview and the final render. These values directly affect the quality of the final shape, so I increase them beyond the default value. For instance, I set them to 36, which creates one extrusion every 10 degrees.
Creating the animation is very simple. Set the Angle parameter to 0 at frame 1 and insert a keyframe for the Angle parameter. Then, go to the last frame of the animation, set the Angle parameter to 360, and insert another keyframe for it.
However, when playing the animation, we notice an issue: the extruded shape is hollow, which makes it unsuitable for the Boolean modifier of the cake. It’s worth noting that the initial Plane was solid, but this solidity is not preserved by the Screw modifier. In the meantime, I set the Shading mode to Smooth to achieve proper shading for the side surface. This introduces shading artifacts on the cylinder's caps, which we will fix later.
To resolve the hollow extrusion issue, first, switch to Edit Mode and delete the two top vertices of the Plane.
Next, return to Object Mode and add a Solidify modifier to the object. Adjust the Thickness parameter to an appropriate value. I'm sorry, I initially modified the Offset parameter by mistake!
To fix the shading artifacts, we add a Smooth By Angle modifier. The default settings should work just fine.
Now, when playing the animation, we can see the desired result.
To create the pie chart animation shown in the previous tutorial, I hid this Plane in both the 3D Viewport preview and the final render. As a result, only the disappearing pie chart was visible in the end.
Ok, that’s it for this short tutorial! I hope you found it helpful. See you next time!