Tree branch growing animation

[santokki15]

Hello
I made a polygon tree (not made with paint effect) and I want one of the branches to grow and bear an apple. I guess the apple part can be done with blend shape... but what about the branch growing part?

If there is anyone who can help me out on this...thank you in advance.

[laxman]

i'd say animated extrusions would be your best bet. If you take a polygon face and select a curve and then extrude the extrusion follows the path of the curve. If you have maya 7 or newer you get LOTs of great options which would be very helpful. It lets you taper certain sections as well as choose where the taper begins. Its hard to describe all the stuff you can do, but just play around with the attributes for the extrude after making the extrude and you'll see what you can do. You can also make a ramp in projection mode and connect it to the transparency so that you can animate the ramp so that it starts out completely transparent and then becomes visible just as the taper get bigger.

Its hard to describe everything, so just play around with it and if you have any specific questions just ask.:)