Animated Boolean is a pair of Lscripts that make an animatedBoolean operation. If I've failed to make this document clear enough,you might have better luck with the tutorial included with the archive.
Almost Legal Stuff:
Animated Boolean copyright (c) 1998 Steve Hoefer Feel free to distribute this as much as you want provided you don't a) charge money for it or include it in a product you charge money for, b) modify it in any way. This product is delivered as is, and I take no responsibility should anything bad happen while using it. This product is mostly unsupported. I made it for my personal use and I'm sharing it with you on the off chance you'll find it useful. If you have any problems with it, you can email me, but don't expect me to fix bugs or troubleshoot. I'm not a software developer, I'm an animator, and that's what I want spend time doing.
In less brief:
In essence you set up an animation of a foreground object and abackground object in Layout (a cut-ee and cut-er), run abrecord.ls toconvert the motion of the cutter to a form that the Modeler plug-in willlike. Then you load the objects in Modeler, set them up like you wouldwith a normal boolean, then run animbool.ls, tell it what file name youwant to save as, and away it'll go, creating a series of sequentiallynumbered models that you can use in Layout with the ObjectSequenceobject replacement plugin. (or probably any object replacement plugin.)
Limitations, Bugs, etc.
1) When setting up the animation, don't move, scale, or rotate thesource (foreground layer) object.
2) This plugin uses the boolean operations that are part of Modeler, andsuffers from all the problems (partition errors, etc.) that booleanoperations typically have. I've tried to program around it, butsometimes it's just going to get cranky. I've only used it with objectsthat are pretty simple, don't be surprised if it blows up if you use it oncomplex or high-polygon items.
3) I only know for sure that it works on my system (Lightwave 5.6,Intel). Your mileage may vary.
4) This is a free plugin which means it ain't been tested too rigorously,and is not heavily supported, but I do hope it's useful.
What all the buttons do.
ABrecord.ls:
<Output filename> Defaults to /Objects/temp.abf. change it toanything you like, but if it ends in abf it makes things easier
.<Source Object> Pick the object that you'll use as the "cutter" (if you'redoing a Subtract anyway). This is the objects motion, etc. that will beused in the animation.
<Start Frame>
<Stop Frame> Where the recording starts and stops. ( I didn't have totell you that did I...)
Animbool.ls
<Source AB File> The file that you made with ABrecord.ls in Modeler.
<Output Filename:> The name of the object file sequence to save out.(don't include a frame # or .lwo)
<Operation> The type of boolean operation to execute.
<Use Motion, Rotation, Scaling> What part of the motion file to use/notuse in the animation.
<On Boolean Error> What to do when there's an error in calculatingerrors. <Save> will save the modified "cutter" into a file so you can try to do the boolean operation manually later (if the foreground imagewould have been "test023.lwo" the cutter will be saved as"test023x.lwo"). <Jitter> will apply <Jitter Amount> of jitter to theobject only when a boolean operation fails. This can often shake thingsup enough to make a boolean work, but makes it less accurate. If, after5 tries, it doesn't work it will do the same as the <save> option. <Exit>won't do anything to compensate and will just stop the plugin, givingyou an error message.
<Merge Points> If "Yes", the plugin will do a Merge Points on thebooleaned object before saving it.
Good luck. If you have any words of love or hate, questions, etc. feelfree to email me at steven@balo.com. If I'm busy I may not respond,but I'll try.
steve.