Back in March 2015, I was working on a project where I had to spell the word “TRIVIA” in these blocky channel letters we see all the time outside theaters. The client also wanted them to move around independently, and of course the lights on the front had to flash sequentially. Modeling each letter was pretty easy. After that, it was just a matter of duplication and moving the lights around to match each letter’s shape.
First I built the letter “T” from a blocky font by extruding just one letter. I duplicated that extruded letter and used it within a Boolean NURBS to cut out the front face area.
Here’s where I built just one light bulb on the front area. The intent was to have each bulb slowly flashing in a sequential order to create a ‘light trail’
After all the lights were rigged onto the letter, then it was time to duplicate the entire letter/light group. Then I changed the text to an “R”, then an “I” etc….
…until I had each letter in the word spelled out.
