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Daily Blender Tip - Pulsating light without keyframes

4

Jan van den Hemel writes:

Using expressions is common in motion graphics to create movement without setting any keyframes. In Blender, it's possible as well - here's a look at creating some pulsating light using a simple expression.

About the Author

Avatar image for Jan van den Hemel
Jan van den Hemel

Hi, my name is Jan and I help companies by creating short videos for their websites and internal use, mostly as a freelancer for agencies. I post daily one-minute tutorials for Blender users and wrote the popular "Blender Secrets" e-books.

4 Comments

  1. General equation could be something like:
    #A*cos(B*frame**C+D)+E

    A adjusts the brightest point.
    B adjusts the overall rate of flashing. B can be a fraction e.g. 1/10 or 0.1, and can be a multiple of Pi. Pi helps align brightest points to specific frames.
    C adjusts the acceleration/deceleration of flashing. 1 = no change in pulse rate. >1 = acceleration. <1 = deceleration.
    D adjusts whether you start bright, dark, or somewhere in between.
    E adjusts the minimum and maximum brightness levels where E-A is the minimum, and E+A is the maximum. Anything 0 or negative is "off."

    Using drivers can make it easier to adjust these things on the fly and reducing keyframes. (Using drivers also eliminates the need for **C.)

    I find, though, that Blender tends to stop responding to changes to this value over time, and needs to be rebooted.

    Thoughts?

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