Procedural 3D animations in Blender using Animation Nodes addon

Hi again. These are a series of animations I created using a visual programming interface for Blender which expands on the node editor, called Animation Nodes. Each of these is actually created using a very similar script. Basically, the rotation of an object is affected each frame by how far away it is from a designated control object. This allows you to create neat sweeping effects that would be prohibitively time consuming to animate by hand.

These are all very short because of my temporary technological handicap, but the techniques I learned from creating these are invaluable.

This is the first one I made, following a tutorial on youtube from Vit Prochazka:

Procedural Petal Ball from Thomas Goodwin on Vimeo.

Next I applied the technique to different geometry. For this one, I produced an animation and then layered it on itself several times in After Effects, reversing a few and changing the blend style until I came up with something I liked. I was able to use large chunks of the original algorithm using Blender's "Append from Library" function.

Procedural Toroid from Thomas Goodwin on Vimeo.

Finally, here is one I made while trying to apply the same technique to a different situation. I definitely want to go back and re-render this from a more exciting camera angle when I get my desktop computer back.

Procedural Pinchers from Thomas Goodwin on Vimeo.