This tutorial shows how to change the material during an animation. Good effect to change characters colors during the movie of simply to make them dissapear.

Beggining our work

This is a very simple effect: and very useful too.

Another day I was surfing on the net and saw a way to change colors of an object along an animation. This is done using using Keys for the material.

The idea is the same when we build animations. You use key frames to save a position, the next position, and blender does all the remaining work.

With the materials is the same, you define a material, use a RGB key or an Alpha Key, and choose another one a little frames ago.

First, do a scene like this:

Press F5 to go to materials menu, and with the mouse pointer over the menu (not over the 3d View), press I and choose RGB.

Now you have defined a RCB Key. The remain work it's just go some frames ahead, modify the material you are using and set another RGB key.

To do that:

• Press Up Arrow twice to go to the frame 21;

• Modify your material (without create another) to another color, like green;

• With mouse pointer over the material menu, press I and choose RGB

It's done. Now if you play your animation, it would look like this:

Setting an alpha key

You can do the same with an alpha channel. The advantages are several ones: make objects to dissapear, hide and show objects, and so on.

Using the animation you build above, do the following steps:

• Press F5 to go to the material menu;

• Press Right Arrow to go to the frame 22;

• Press I and choose Alpha;

• Press Up Arrow twice to go to the frame 42;

• Set the transparent settings like this: