Colorize bronchial tubes from wide to narrow

Question

I want to colorize these stylised bronchial tubes in an animation from the top (wider tube) to the bottom (narrow tubes). Do you have an idea how to achive this? Maybe with animation nodes? How would you do it?

Ideas are very welcome, thank you in advance!

i don't think that's possible...but i am very curious for the answers here... ;) It should be possible with python so... — John MC, Sep 04 '21 at 14:23
Have a look at the answers here, and the links out to @Pali's OSL scripts. 'Thickness Shader' might be a good search-term. — Robin Betts, Sep 04 '21 at 14:54

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 04 '21 at 18:07

I would do a UV Unwrap > Project from View, align the UV islands (subtrees) along the Y(V)-axis, and use a UVWrap modifier with 2 Empties or a driver in the Mapping Node to animate it:

If you want to make it perfect you need to rotate and align every branch top-down. I did it only for the main branches:

Set the extrapolation mode for the Image Textexure node to Extended:

Use the UV Warp modifier or the Y value of the Mapping node to animate the color.

Very smart solution! Thank you @Blunder! – Chrischan Sep 05 '21 at 06:43 — Chrischan, Sep 05 '21 at 06:43

Colorize bronchial tubes from wide to narrow

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