Here’s a great way to create an animated dotted line effect like the one below.
First create a nurbs spline to be used for the path of the dotted lines. For mine I just used a Helix and adjusted the parameters to stretch it out more.
Ok now let’s create our arrow head by creating a polygon object... then in the parameters click on triangle.
Now make the object editable
, then
set your select feature to poylgon faces
and
click on the triangle face.Now go to Structure and Extrude, click apply and drag the poylgon face up to match your desired width.
Now you’ll notice that there’s a hole on the other side of the arrow head, just select Close Polygon Hole in the Structure menu and click on the hole.. then BAM! fixed, right? great, let’s move on then shall we?
All right now add an align to spline tag from the tag menu under Cinema 4d tags.
Drag and drop your spline into the Spline Path parameter. Now adjust the Position value and watch how your arrow head moves along the path.
Click on tangential to have the arrow head rotate along the path. If need adjust the Axis value to the correct the arrow head’s alignment.
Now go to frame 0 set the Postion in the tag to 0 and right click and select Animation, Add Keyframe. Now go to frame 90 and set the position to 100% and right click and add another keyframe.
Now click play and watch your animation playout.
Something Extra: If you’re ok with how your arrow head is turning out you can probably skip this little section. But this fixed a few animation problems for me.
Duplicate your Helix curve then move it over a bit, now rename this curve Helix Rail Path. Then drag and drop it into the Rail Path value box. This helps with some of the rotation and alignment of arrow head.
Ok now for the dotted lines, you’ll need Mograph for this section:
Add a Tracer object from the Mograph menu.
Drag the arrow head into the Trace Link parameters, then uncheck Trace Vertices. Hit play and you’ll see it trace out the path of object.
Now create a nurbs rectangle and a Sweep Nurbs object.
Now drag the rectangle and Tracer object into the Sweep Nurbs. Make sure you scale down your rectangle to the appropiate size.
In the Sweep Nurbs parameters turn off Banking to keep the curve from rotating.
Now that we have our curve let’s cut out the curve.
Create a poylgon cube and scale the object down.
Create a Cloner object, and drag the cube into the Cloner and drag the curve into Object parameter.
Make sure the Mode is “Count” and play around with the count # to get the desired effect you are looking for. This is what mine looks like so far:
Now we’re going to use that Cloner object to cut out the Tracer object. So create a Boole...
Then drag the Sweep NURBS and Cloner Object into the Boole. Important, make sure they are layered correctly otherwise you’ll remove the Sweep NURBS from the Cloner object and your image will look really weird.
Here’s what you should get when you’re done:
Now hit play and watch the fun begin!