I’ve been trying to figure this one out for awhile now. How do I have a box like this one in my screen capture, follow a path and retain right angles at the corners of the path?

This is what is happening when I try it this way.

Any help would be much much appreciated.

Best,

Max 8 through 2011, Windows 7 x64.
Vray/Mental Ray
NVidia Quadro FX3800.
Core i7 970 3.20GHz, 24Gb Ram

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Is the box animated along the path? If not, you could use a Sweep modifier on the path or make a Loft compound object.
With Path Deform I don’t think you will get sharp right angles, you can get round corner if you increase the box segments and give the path a slight fillet on the corners.

It is animated along the path. I want it to grow along the path. I’m not familiar with a Sweep modifier or a Loft compound object.  But if you could summarize it that would be great. Thank you for replying though. I was trying to find examples of what I’m looking for but I can’t seem to find any.

Max 8 through 2011, Windows 7 x64.
Vray/Mental Ray
NVidia Quadro FX3800.
Core i7 970 3.20GHz, 24Gb Ram

The best I could come up with quickly is a Loft with animated Scale Deformation.

Select the object. Go to the Loft level in the Modify panel. Expand the Deformations rollout and click on Scale. Play the animation.
There are two in-between control points which animate the Scale of the Loft along the path, form 0% to 100%.

Its a Little funky at the corners, but I’m using only corner vertices in the Path.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

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15719_yKwHJy6H2h1JiLRsFRmA.zip

And here it is, but with the vertices at the “turns” modified with Fillet, just enough to prevent the cross-over.
The Skin Parameters Path Steps are increased to 8, to round the turns.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

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Ok I figured out how to get the actual “loft” to make the shape, but what is not working is the animating of the loft shape. I followed what you said exactly and no control points that appear. The time line does pop up, but when I move those around they only effect the the shape of the lofted object. Also, I noticed the conrers (like you said) are getting messed up. I want the shape to be perfectly square - as if at every bend the shape is just extruding out from the shape that is following the path.

Like you said you did it fast, so is there a way to achieve this?  As well as those control points showing up?

Max 8 through 2011, Windows 7 x64.
Vray/Mental Ray
NVidia Quadro FX3800.
Core i7 970 3.20GHz, 24Gb Ram

For any of the Deformations, there are only two control points to begin with; one at 0 and one at 100. You have to add two more in-between.

What exactly do the corner turns have to look like when animate?
Does the box shape go all the way to the extents, then it starts to grow out the side? Or does it get to the begining of the corner and the inside verticies stop while the outside continue to the far outside corner, make a 90 degree turn, go the width, then both the inside and outside vertices continue on together in a the new direction?

Given the requirements so far, I do not see how you can do the square turn with Loft.

If I absolutely had to do square turns, I would consider animating a number of Editable Poly objects, by moving a polygon in the direction of travel. Animate its visibility to 0 while at the same frame animate the next Editable Poly object’s visibility to 1, then move its polygon.

Maybe someone knows a way to do this as one continuous object.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

Here is an example.

Tim Wilbers [FA]

College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Visual Arts
University of Dayton
http://www.udayton.edu/
3ds Max: 7.5, 8, 9, 2008, 2009, 2010

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15781_vYRFDBrblPuwSZWJrwPJ.zip

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15782_51BKEOFgai6Vn9fswYSK.mov

Yes! This is exactly what I needed. It’s sad that you can’t just animate it on a single path. But yes, this is what I was ultimately trying to do. Thank you! Hopefully someone can help with trying to do it as one object. Thank you for this though!

Max 8 through 2011, Windows 7 x64.
Vray/Mental Ray
NVidia Quadro FX3800.
Core i7 970 3.20GHz, 24Gb Ram