Blender Tutorial: How to Make an Object Follow a Path/Curve

[Music] in this blender tutorial we are going to look into everything you need to know in order to make an object take the shape of a path we will also look into how to attach other objects to the main geometry by using a simple geometry node setup the first step is to create the main object in the scene select everything then delete switch to top orthographic View add in a plane and reduce its size to something like 0.5 into edit mode controller and add four Loop cuts next step is to move this plane's origin from its Center to this Edge therefore when this Edge is selected shift s cursor to selected tab into object mode object set origin origin to 3D cursor add an array modifier to this plane to move the array to the opposite side you change Factor on X to negative one to make this object longer you increase the count in the array modifier since this object is going to take the shape of a curve it needs to have a good number of loop cuts to see those Loop Cuts go to overlays then enable wireframe some AMD graphics cards have a problem in blender the wireframe might not show up right away therefore I need to go to render properties expand performance then enable high quality normals next step is to add in a curve before doing that go to preferences in add-ons search for curve enable add curve extra objects then remember to save the preferences if you go to add curve you can see there are plenty of options here go to curve spirals then archimedium here you can adjust this curve further you can reduce the number of steps to be 10. you can see that this curve has sharp edges to smooth them up you change the output curve type to be nurbs you can also adjust the height number of turns creates the actual spiral the origin of the curve needs to be at this vertex when this vertex is selected shift s then cursor to selected tab into object mode object set origin origin to 3D cursor the next step is to move this plane to the location of the 3D cursor therefore shift s selection to cursor to give some thickness to the plane add a solidify modifier [Music] also add in a bevel modifier [Music] you can see now that this object looks like it's segmented to fix that you enable merge in the array modifier the origin of the plane and that one of the curve are exactly at the same location shift C to move cursor back to world origin rotate this object along the z-axis about 90 degrees Ctrl a apply rotation after applying the rotation this object seems to be going back to the way it initially looked to fix that go to the array modifier and set Factor on X to be zero then set Factor on y to negative 1. [Music] add a curve modifier to this object using the eyedropper select this curve you have created [Music] you can see the object is now not oriented correctly to fix that you adjust the deformation axis for this one it's going to be the y-axis if you adjust the Y location you can see how the object is already taking the shape of the path shade smooth this object to make the path more smooth you increase its resolution [Music] when the object has already taken the shape of the curve you can still adjust its rotation [Music] in this animation you can clearly see that the object contains a number of strips while taking the shape of the Curve to achieve something similar to that get into edit mode and scale down slightly along the x-axis shift e to duplicate this object is having an array modifier therefore when you duplicate it creates this gaps just undo then go to the array modifier and apply now if You tab into edit mode you can duplicate without any problems scale it along the x-axis this way adjust its said position this way if you switch into front orthographic view you can adjust the geometry easily to get more variations you keep on duplicating and scaling along the x-axis [Music] if you adjust the Y location you can see again how the object is following the path here you can see that there are a number of small objects attached to the main object you can easily get this by using a very simple geometry node setup firstly create a new collection rename it to particles when particles is selected add in a few primitive shapes move them to the side and scale them down this way Ctrl a apply scale Shades move this sphere these shapes are going to be attached to this object sometimes you may want to attach things on a specific geometry of an object on this one the particles are going to be attached on this selected geometry to select the geometry you need you press L which selects the geometry that is linked go to object data properties create a new vertex group rename it to particles then assign switch to Geometry node's workspace create a new geometry node group rename it to particles bring in particles collection into the geometry node group add in distribute points on faces connect it here add in instant on points connect it here after connecting the two nodes you can see that the object is now invisible add in a join geometry node bring it here connect join geometry to group output this way connect group input to join geometry this way finally connect instance on point to join geometry connect the particles collection to instance on points node this particles are supposed to be on the object on the collection info enable separate children and reset children on instance on points node enable pick instance [Music] to adjust the scale of these particles add in a random value node connect it to scale of instance on points adjust the minimum and maximum values this is now the time to use the vertex group that was created earlier the vertex group was set on the selected geometry to use the vertex group go to group input then connect it to density the next step is to go to modifier properties on the geometry nodes click on this input attribute toggle select the name of the vertex group you can see that the particles are only applied to the desired geometry [Music] to move the particles away from the volume of the object you add in a translate instances node connect it here adjust the translation slightly this way [Music] in order to control the number of particles change random to poisson disk now connect group input to density Factor to reduce particle intersections adjust the distance minimum if you adjust the Y location once more you can see that the particles are following the main object along the path finally let's see if we can alter the shape of this spiral in order to get a path that looks more interesting in front orthographic view tab into edit mode of the path select these vertices shift e to duplicate then adjust them this way now select these vertices and delete select these two vertices press F to connect [Music] the good thing about this is that you only adjust the Y location of the object and it automatically takes the shape of the path to add on that you can continue adjusting the points to achieve something more unique [Music]

Channel: George Kayesi

Views: 33,892

Keywords: Object Follow Curve, object follow curve blender, Object Follow Path, blender path animation, Curve Animation, blender curve, Blender, Blender Tutorial, Animation, 3D Animation, Blender Animation Tutorial, Motion Graphics, Keyframing, 3D Modeling, geometry nodes, blender tutorial for beginners, Animate along a path, blender animation tutorial, motion graphics tutorial, blender product animation, blender motion graphics, 3d motion graphics, Motion graphics blender

Id: KqPF9Kju8E8

Length: 10min 20sec (620 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 28 2023